90%UNDIGITIZED
Undigitized10% digitized
The average share of analogue collections still undigitized across surveyed archives.
Europe · 2017 · Unweighted institutional average
ENUMERATE Core Survey 4, Figure 3.7 ↗INTRODUCTION
For centuries, humanity has sought to understand the world, recording observations and discoveries and preserving them in libraries and archives.
Yet much of this knowledge remains difficult to access, scattered across collections on paper and microform. Growing demand for high-quality AI training data creates an opportunity to digitize these materials, opening them to researchers, students, and the public while enriching the knowledge available to AI.
Fahrenheit is an independent research library building the Public Domain Collective, an initiative to digitize public domain materials and make them widely available for research.
We cannot afford to leave centuries of accumulated human knowledge behind.
Explore the Public Domain CollectiveKNOWLEDGE
OUT OF REACH
Availability of textual pages
- Online
- 4%
- Not online
- 96%
Online scans cover just 4% of the U.S. National Archives’ estimated 12.5 billion textual pages.
October 2026 · Rounded from 4.04%
U.S. National Archives, Record Group Explorer ↗77%Digitization takes people
77% of surveyed U.S. public libraries identified insufficient staff time as a major barrier to digitizing their collections.
2016 survey; reported figure 77.2%.
OCLC, p. 11 ↗1 in 2Digital collections need protection, too
Nearly half of surveyed U.S. public libraries doing digitization lacked a long-term strategy to protect their digital files from loss.
2016 survey · 49.5% of libraries currently or recently digitizing
OCLC, p. 10 ↗92%Unique local collections
92% of surveyed U.S. public libraries held unique, locally significant materials—collections that preserve the knowledge and history of their communities.
2016 survey · Results weighted by library size
OCLC, p. 9 ↗PUBLIC DOMAIN
COLLECTIVE
Make the public domain public.
Research is accelerating as new tools help scholars analyze more evidence and connect ideas across disciplines. Yet much of the knowledge that could fuel new discoveries remains difficult to access on paper and microform.
Fahrenheit will digitize these materials and make them freely available for academic research and education. We invite libraries and archives to join and access collections never before available digitally.
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Digitize analog collections.
Digitize public domain materials from paper and microform, prioritizing collections that have never been available digitally.
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Free access for
research and education.Give universities and libraries access to shared public domain collections as they become available, supporting researchers and educators.
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Nominate your
next collection.Participating libraries and archives can nominate public domain materials from their holdings. Digitization will be free for selected collections.
An invitation to libraries and archives.
Join the collective for access to upcoming collections and opportunities to request free digitization.
OUR TEAM
Our team brings experience spanning public service and frontier AI, from developing software for the federal government to managing tens of thousands of expert contractors who have produced over $100 million worth of high-quality training data for leading AI labs.
We believe public-private partnerships can help preserve centuries of human observation, discovery, creativity, and experience, and give researchers new ways to learn from them. The Public Domain Collective is how we’re putting that belief into practice.
Because access to knowledge is fundamental to the pursuit of truth, this accumulated record should be accessible to everyone, not just AI systems.
Our mission is simple: ensure no knowledge is left behind.
We are actively hiring and looking for ambitious people of all backgrounds.
If this resonates with you, reach out.