internet-archive-mcpunofficial

unofficial · an MCP server · version 0.1.0

The Internet Archive, for your AI assistant

Ask in plain words. Your assistant searches millions of books, newspapers, films, records, TV news and thirty years of the web, reads what it finds, and shows you where each answer came from.

Watch it workRead the stories

coming soon The first public release isn't out yet; then it installs with one line. What setup will look like: Get started.

Front page of The Bourbon News, Paris, Kentucky, 15 October 1918.
The Bourbon News, 15 October 1918found by full-text search

What it is. A small program your AI client starts on your computer. It gives the assistant 39 tools for archive.org's public services, across 8 services: items and full text, the Wayback Machine, page images, TV news, Open Library and more.

Why it matters. The Archive holds primary sources most assistants can't reach. With these tools the assistant quotes the scan, the capture or the caption itself, with a link, so you can check every step.

Safe by default. It only reads unless you start it in write mode, and every change is previewed first. How it stays safe.

ask the archive

Watch an assistant work the Archive

Real tool calls and their results, replayed
You

I have a Penguin Classics Frankenstein, ISBN 9780141439471. Can I borrow it?

  1. openlibrary_editionPenguin Books, 2003 · work OL450063W
  2. book_availabilityaccess: print_disabled_only
  3. book_availability1831 edition · access: public
See eight questions answered
book_availability
Engraved frontispiece of the 1831 Frankenstein: in a vaulted room lit through a tall leaded window, the naked creature half sits up on the floor among a skull, bones and an open book, while a cloaked man flees through the doorway. Below, the word FRANKENSTEIN and a caption engraved in script.
Print-disabled readers only

Not that paperback, unless you're registered as a print-disabled reader.

Free to read

The 1831 edition is free to read.

stories

Seven stories from the Archive

Live runs of the server, replayed call by call, with what came back
Title page: From the Earth to the Moon, by Jules Verne, New York, 1874.
Eight services · one subject

To the Moon, by way of the Archive

An 1874 Verne, full-text search across books, an Apollo 11 photograph, NASA subtitles, thirty years of nasa.gov and the 2024 eclipse on TV.

  • analysis
  • changes
  • iiif
  • items
  • openlibrary
  • views
  • wayback
Newspaper column headed: Red Cross Tea Room to close during influenza.
Newspapers · full-text search

Headlines of 1918

273 of 646 issues mention influenza; the week of 21 Oct 1918 peaks at 79%.

  • iiif
  • items
Web history · Wayback Machine

The web that vanished

2,573 days of captures, a diff of the April 2009 announcement, and the last day: 26 October 2009.

  • analysis
  • wayback
A worn black disc photographed from above, its centre stamped with the Berliner Gramophone name and the title of the recitation.
Sound · subtitles · full text

Sounds of the past

203 of 265 printed words match the machine's transcript of an 1898 recitation.

  • iiif
  • items
Engraved frontispiece of the 1831 Frankenstein: in a vaulted room lit through a tall leaded window, the naked creature half sits up on the floor among a skull, bones and an open book, while a cloaked man flees through the doorway. Below, the word FRANKENSTEIN and a caption engraved in script.
Books · Open Library · IIIF

Frankenstein, from shelf to scan

One ISBN, 2,187 editions, and the 1831 scan anyone can read, word box by word box.

  • iiif
  • items
  • openlibrary
  • views
TV news · captions · Wayback

Artemis I, on the news

345 TV programs on 21 channels, 55 on the busiest day, and the launch call in the captions.

  • analysis
  • tvnews
  • wayback
A grey cartoon frame: a bare, broken tree with wisps of smoke, and on the ground beside it a turtle drawn into its shell.
Films · analysis · subtitles

A film library, by the numbers

10,468 items, nearly all films, summed up in two requests; at least 211.1 M downloads, and Duck and Cover line by line.

  • analysis
  • iiif
  • items
  • views

All stories, and which tools each uses →

52ToolsEvery tool and parameter, in 8 services39Safetyread-only tools by default; every write previewed; keys never in the chat→Get startedAdd it to Claude Code, Claude Desktop or another client