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Resources For Supporters

Welcome to the Our Future Memory campaign resource hub. Whether you’re looking to sign the statement, help others do the same, or spread the word, this page gives you everything you need.

🎙 Podcast Highlight

“Future Knowledge” — Episode 6: Four Digital Rights of Memory Institutions

Join the Internet Archive and Authors Alliance in this timely episode, recorded in late July 2025. The conversation delves into the Our Future Memory campaign and the Four Digital Rights—the Right to Collect, Preserve, Provide Controlled Access, and Cooperate—that memory institutions urgently need in today’s digital landscape. Featuring voices from around the world, the discussion underscores how institutions like libraries, archives, and museums can continue serving future generations only if these rights are secured online.

This episode provides rich context for the campaign’s Statement and how each right matters in practice. Whether you’re advocating internally, engaging with policymakers, or helping others sign, it’s a must-listen resource to better understand the global call for protecting our shared digital heritage.

🧩 Why Sign?

Libraries, archives, and museums—our memory institutions—preserve the building blocks of culture and history. But in the digital era, their ability to collect, preserve, and provide access to knowledge is under threat due to outdated laws and restrictive commercial practices.

By endorsing the Statement on Digital Rights for Protecting Memory Institutions Online, you stand for:

  • The Right to Collect: Ensuring institutions can acquire both physical and digital works without undue legal or commercial restrictions.
  • The Right to Preserve: Allowing digital materials to be backed up, repaired, and saved for the long term.
  • The Right to Provide Controlled Access: Supporting researchers and the public by enabling digital access to collections
  • The Right to Cooperate: Facilitating global collaboration between memory institutions.

These rights help modernize institutions’ historic roles—ensuring they can continue to serve future generations.

✍️ How to Sign

Supporting the statement is simple and impactful. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Get the Statement
     Download it from ourfuturememory.org or email us at campaigns@internetarchive.eu to request a copy.
  2. Sign It
    Print the statement and sign it by hand or fill it in electronically using an Adobe-compatible tool.
  3. Send It Back
    Scan your signed document and email it to campaigns@internetarchive.eu.

We’ll acknowledge your support and include you among the growing list of signatories on our website.

📣 How to Get Others to Sign

Let your peers and partners know why this matters. Here are ways you can help amplify the campaign:

Newsletter Snippets

Use these short blurbs in your organization’s newsletters, blogs, or announcements:

  • 25 words:
    What if our shared history disappeared online? Our Future Memory defends libraries and archives in the digital age. Check out the campaign and get involved.
  • 50 words:
    What will future generations remember if today’s knowledge vanishes online? Our Future Memory defends the rights of libraries, archives, and museums. Visit and support the campaign.
  • 100 words:
    Imagine a future where the world’s knowledge is locked away, erased, or never digitized. Our Future Memory is a global campaign defending the rights of memory institutions. We urge policymakers to safeguard these rights to ensure public access to knowledge. Explore the campaign and see how you can help protect our digital heritage.

📨 Email Template for Outreach

Dear,

Internet Archive Europe officially launched the global campaign “Our Future Memory” based on “Four Rights For Libraries”. I encourage your organisation to support the campaign by signing the statement and sending it to campaigns@internetarchive.eu 

Knowledge and memory institutions support their communities by preserving and providing long-term access to cultural, artistic, and scientific knowledge, which forms our collective intellectual heritage. These institutions and organisations also assist individuals in seeking, retrieving, and sharing information, democratizing access and enabling everyone—regardless of income or physical location—to grow and participate in public life.

The rights and responsibilities that our institutions have always enjoyed in the physical world must also be protected online. To achieve this, libraries, archives, and museums must have the legal rights and practical ability to:

  • Collect materials in digital form
  • Preserve digital heritage over the long term
  • Lend content under traditional library conditions
  • Collaborate through the sharing and transfer of collections

As licensing models threaten everyone’s ability to manage culture and knowledge, institutions and organisations are invited to take part in safeguarding these rights for all. At this stage, the collection of signatures is aimed at institutions and organisations, not individuals.

👉 Check out https://ourfuturememory.org

🧾 Fact Sheets & Background

Need to explain the issue in detail? Download and share our:

  • Why the Digital Rights Statement Matters – PDF
    Explains each of the four core digital rights and why they are essential.

💬 Questions or Media Requests?

We’d love to help. Email us at campaigns@internetarchive.eu and we’ll get back to you.

Let’s ensure future generations can access our collective memory.
→ Sign. Share. Safeguard.