Libraries abroad: The John F. Kennedy Library to start largest converted digital archive

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library is preparing to launch the largest online presidential digital archive ever created from pre-digital formats. It took more than four years to digitize its 285,000 documents, photographs, audiotape and films.

David Ferriero, archivist of the United States, and Caroline Kennedy, the foundation's president, will officially debut the archive in Washington on Jan. 13 as part of the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s inauguration this month.

The Kennedy online library is said to be the largest to be converted from pre-digital formats. The most recent presidential libraries have much more substantial digital holdings, including George W. Bush’s, which contains 200 million e-mail messages, and Bill Clinton’s, which has 20 million e-mail messages.

The Kennedy digital archive includes 200,000 pages of text, 1,245 individual recordings, 300 museum artifacts, 72 reels of moving images and 1,500 photos that have been digitized, described and loaded electronically, according to a Jan. 6 news release from the National Archives and Records Administration.

The archive will be made accessible through the Kennedy library’s website.