We just launched a new image permalinks feature for downloading and linking to page images of books hosted on the Internet Archive. Using a page image permalink makes it easier to references the contents of a book hosted on the Archive without having to know the details of how or where the book is stored. Since a book’s data could be moved around within the multiple petabytes of data in the Archive at any time the permalinks provide a consistent and stable way to access the page images.

Here are a few quick examples. For each of these URLs you would add http://www.archive.org/download/{item identifier} to the beginning (hover over an image to see its full URL).

Referencing the cover image for a book at thumbnail size:
/page/cover_thumb.jpg

You can also request other sizes and rotations (in 90 degree increments):
/page/n194_rotate90_medium.jpg

The full list of options is given in the Downloading / Linking Page Images section of the Book URLs developer documentation.

We’re hoping that the image permalinks will make it easier for people to access the wealth of books hosted on the Archive and stimulate new uses of the images. Let us know if you do something cool!