Yes! When I learned of Anna's Archive a few years back I too was frustrated by the lack of a short explainer of how to access single files, existence of an API, etc. Now I'm envious of LLMs somehow

I’m not completely sure there was an API from the start. I’ve thought the only way is to get a DB dump (which sounds pretty reasonable to me).

Hah! I learned of Anna's a few months ago. I posted a slightly snarky comment on the lack of an explainer and got downvoted to oblivion

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46169388

  >>  You know, it wouldn't kill them to add some fucking details to the main page rather than making you dig for it. The TL;DR:

  WTF is a Anna's Archive: Hi, I’m Anna. I created Anna’s Archive, the world’s largest shadow library. This is my personal blog, in which I and my teammates write about piracy, digital preservation, and more.

  WTF this post is about: Exclusive access for LLM companies to largest Chinese non-fiction book collection in the world.