The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation has introduced the nation’s largest online digitized presidential archive, offering access to papers, records, photographs and recordings of President Kennedy’s thousand days in office.
The collection includes the President’s Office Files; the Personal Papers of John F. Kennedy; the Outgoing Letters of President John F. Kennedy; the JFK White House Photograph Collection; the JFK White House Audio Speech Collection; and the JFK White House Film and Video Collection. At launch, the archive features approximately 200,000 pages; 300 reels of audio tape, containing more than 1,245 individual recordings of telephone calls, speeches and meetings; 300 museum artifacts; 72 reels of film; and 1,500 photos.
"My parents believed that history is one of our greatest teachers," said Caroline Kennedy, President of the Kennedy Library Foundation.
"As young people increasingly rely on the internet as their primary source for information, it is our hope that the Library’s online archive will allow a new generation to learn about this important chapter in American history. And as they discover the heroes of the civil rights movement, the pioneers of outer space, and the first Peace Corps volunteers, we hope they too are inspired to ask what they can do for their country.”
To manage a digitization project the archivists of the Kennedy Presidential Library prioritized the Library’s historic collections beginning with those that hold the highest research interest and significance.