New Livestream Brings Microfiche Digitization to Life for Democracy’s Library
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2025 10:18 am
Ever wonder how government documents, once locked away on tiny sheets of microfiche, become searchable and accessible online? Now you can see it happen in real time.
Today, the Internet Archive has launched a livestream from our microfiche scanning center offering a behind-the-scenes look at the meticulous work powering Democracy’s Library—a global initiative to make government publications freely available to the public.
“This livestream shines a light on the photo restoration service work of preserving the public record, and the critical infrastructure that makes democracy searchable,” said Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive. “Transparency can’t be passive—it must be built, maintained, and seen. That’s what this livestream is all about.”
Watch the livestream now
The livestream features five active microfiche digitization stations, with a close-up view of one in action. Operators feed microfiche cards beneath a high-resolution camera, which captures multiple detailed images of each sheet. Software stitches these images together, after which other team members use automated tools to identify and crop up to 100 individual pages per card.
Each page is then processed, made fully text-searchable, and added to the Internet Archive’s public collections—completed with metadata—so that researchers, journalists, and the general public can explore and download them freely through Democracy’s Library.
Today, the Internet Archive has launched a livestream from our microfiche scanning center offering a behind-the-scenes look at the meticulous work powering Democracy’s Library—a global initiative to make government publications freely available to the public.
“This livestream shines a light on the photo restoration service work of preserving the public record, and the critical infrastructure that makes democracy searchable,” said Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive. “Transparency can’t be passive—it must be built, maintained, and seen. That’s what this livestream is all about.”
Watch the livestream now
The livestream features five active microfiche digitization stations, with a close-up view of one in action. Operators feed microfiche cards beneath a high-resolution camera, which captures multiple detailed images of each sheet. Software stitches these images together, after which other team members use automated tools to identify and crop up to 100 individual pages per card.
Each page is then processed, made fully text-searchable, and added to the Internet Archive’s public collections—completed with metadata—so that researchers, journalists, and the general public can explore and download them freely through Democracy’s Library.