Although the U.S. federal shutdown means many important government websites—such as those for the Library of Congress and NASA—have gone completely dark this week, the nonprofit Internet Archive is making those sites available to the public through archived captures, the organization has announced on its blog.
Through the use of its “Wayback Machine”—a collection of more than 240 billion web pages archived from 1996 up to just a few months ago—the Archive is making available the now-shuttered sites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, the National Science Foundation, the Federal Communication Commission, the Bureau of the Census, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the United States Geological Survey, the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the International Trade Administration, and the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Visitors to the Internet Archive also can suggest additional sites to be captured.
The Internet Archive was founded to build an Internet library. It offers permanent access to historical collections in digital format, including texts, audio, moving images, software, and archived web pages.