After all, they don’t have to host any files themselves over HTTP anymore, but can instead link to one of the many IPFS Gateways, which will happily proxy the books from one of the many volunteer-run machines (this is the big advantage IPFS has over BitTorrent). Some of the Library Genesis mirrors have already done this a few years ago for their books, and it makes access to their collection more resiliant. One such thing is to put the books up on IPFS. This seems the right time to step up and help shape the next chapter of shadow libraries.

Now we’re trying to figure out what is next. With Z-Library down, we scrambled to get this running as soon as possible, and we did a soft-launch shortly thereafter. We also already had started working on a search aggregator for shadow libraries: “Anna’s Archive” (not linking here, but you can Google it). Just a few months ago, we released our second backup of Z-Library - for about 31TB in total.

Much love to you and your families, and thank you for what you have done for the world. It was sad day for the free flow of information, knowledge, and culture. The site continues to run on Tor (presumably maintained by their employees), but no one knows how sustainable that is.

Their domains were seized by the FBI, and the (alleged) founders were arrested in Argentina. Until it all came crashing down two weeks ago. They were thriving on donations, and were therefore able to hire a professional team to keep improving the site. They had taken the concept of a shadow library to the next level, with a great user interface, bulk uploading and deduplication systems, and all sorts of other features. For the uninitiated, a quick recap: Z-Library was a massive “shadow library” of books, similar to Sci-Hub or Library Genesis. Z-Library has been taken down, and its founders arrested.

Z library mirrors