News Release
Kennedy Presidential Library Announces Ground Breaking
Initiative to Permanently Preserve the Archives of
JFK
−EMC Corporation and National Archives Partner to
Make JFK’s Presidential Papers Accessible Worldwide
through Web−
Boston, MA – Twenty-nine years after participating in the formal groundbreaking of the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on Columbia Point, Senator Edward M. Kennedy today announced a major and unprecedented effort by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to build a new library – a digital one consisting of the entire collection of papers, documents, photographs and audio recordings of President John F. Kennedy, eventually making them accessible to citizens throughout the world via the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s website – www.jfklibrary.org
Senator Kennedy was joined by Allen Weinstein,
Archivist of the
The initiative announced today to digitize,
index and archive millions of presidential documents, manuscripts, photographs
and audio/visual recordings at a presidential library collection is the first of
its kind in the nation. It materialized as the result of the leadership of the
Kennedy Library Foundation, which has forged a strong public-private partnership
with the Kennedy Presidential Library and its Director Deborah Leff. The Kennedy
Library Foundation is a private non-profit organization that provides creative
resources and financial support to the Kennedy Presidential Library. The Foundation’s President is Caroline
Kennedy.
Included among the millions of historical papers, documents and images that will be permanently preserved are precious and irreplaceable records of the nation’s struggle for Civil Rights; its conflict with the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War; its efforts to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the decade; its commitment to public service through the creation of the Peace Corps; its prevention of a nuclear holocaust during the Cuban Missile Crisis; and its embrace of American art and culture under the guidance of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
The ground breaking initiative has been made possible by EMC, the Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based world leader in information management and storage, whose in-kind donation in software, hardware and technical support and services is expected to exceed $1 million for the total project.
EMC was approached for its support of the project
by Paul G. Kirk, Jr., Board Chairman of the Kennedy Library Foundation,
The Kennedy Presidential Library’s research
facilities are among the busiest of presidential libraries. Its archives
currently include more than 8.4 million pages of the personal, congressional and
presidential papers of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and more than 40 million pages
of over 300 other individuals who were associated with the Kennedy
Administration or mid-20th Century American history. In addition, the archives
hold more than 400,000 still photographs; 9,000 hours of audio recordings; 7.5
million feet of motion picture film; and 1,200 hours of video recordings. The
project to digitize the collection is expected to take more than 10 years and
will begin with the official papers of President
Kennedy.
“President Kennedy wrote that history was
the means by which a nation establishes its sense of identity and purpose,” said
Senator Edward M. Kennedy. “For scholars and students, presidential libraries
hold the memory of our nation. They are unique repositories of our
country’s history. The storage capability required for this vast amount of
data far exceeds anything that the National Archives or the Kennedy Presidential
Library could provide, and we’re extremely fortunate that EMC has made such a
generous and extraordinary donation to preserve this treasure of American
history forever.”
“EMC is proud to be working with the John F.
Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum to ensure that its historical treasures
are preserved and made broadly accessible to scholars and the general public
around the world for generations to come,” said Joe Tucci, EMC’s Chairman,
President and CEO. “EMC’s mission is to help organizations get the most value
possible from their information by providing them with world-class technologies
and solutions for capturing, storing, managing, protecting, moving, and
archiving information in all forms. It’s especially gratifying to have been able
to donate our financial support, storage platforms, software, and technical
expertise to such a distinguished library located in our home state of
“A large-scale digitizing initiative, such as that
initiated by the Kennedy Presidential Library, is a complex undertaking,” said
Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the
The projects' objectives are five-fold:
· The long-term preservation of administration records, photographs, documents, video and audio;
· Provide online accessibility to a worldwide audience;
· Enhance one’s ability to search the collection using metadata;
· Protecting historical assets through remote replication (keeping a copy in another location in case of disaster); and
·
Minimizing wear
and tear on irreplaceable physical assets.
EMC Technology and Systems
Employed
Working with Library archivists, EMC has
built an information infrastructure based on a variety of EMC software and
systems to digitize, index and archive the Library's information. Using EMC Documentum® software
technologies, the Library can easily scan volumes of paper documents, instantly
making them available electronically. Additionally, EMC Documentum® software
extracts and manages the metadata needed to index this information – enabling
search, categorization and web publishing for public access. EMC DiskXtender®
software moves and stores this information onto an EMC CLARiiON® system and then
archives the information to an EMC Centera™ system. EMC NetWorker™ software is used to
backup this information remotely to ensure it is available in the event of a
natural or man-made disaster.
The signature Centera™ and Documentum™
products that have been donated to the Kennedy Library Foundation offer a
variety of tools including databases, search engines, and other tools to
annotate and add descriptive information to any digital asset, and programs
for presenting and printing the digital data. Because EMC will also
provide unlimited storage, the Library will not have to be concerned about asset
integrity and the size of files.
The EMC Documentum™ software will enable the Kennedy Presidential Library to create a catalog of all digitized holdings that will be stored permanently and securely on Centera.™ It will also allow complete control over what documents or items within the Library’s holdings and collections are made accessible to the public.
EMC Corporation is the world leader in
products, services, and solutions for information storage and its management.
EMC is the information storage standard for every major computing platform and,
through its solutions, serves as caretaker for more than two-thirds of the
world’s most essential information.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is one of 11 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration and is supported, in part, by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization. The Kennedy Presidential Library and the Kennedy Library Foundation seek to promote, through educational and community programs, a greater appreciation and understanding of American politics, history, and culture, the process of governing and the importance of public service.
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Further Information:
Brent Carney
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and
Museum
(617) 514-1662
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