Library of Congress' American Memory-early large-scale digital library

The Library of Congress developed the American Memory project and made major collections available online in the early 1990s, with significant public access by 1994; it became one of the first large-scale digital library initiatives by a U.S. federal cultural institution. The project provided free online access to digitized historical documents, photographs, and recordings and influenced standards for digital preservation and public access in libraries and archives. American Memory is documented as an early federal effort to create a substantial public digital collection.