With a browsable collection of approximately 40,000 books, periodicals, government documents and other printed ephemera, The Prelinger Library offers its contents to the public for free copy and appropriation. As more and more libraries, perhaps America’s most-democratic and enduring institutions, are going the way of digital archiving and microfilm access instead of offering up actual hard-copy text, The Prelinger Library encourages bookish exploration of a tangible sort.