#  Preserving voice of president — and thousands of others 

 





March 15, 2022

 

 

   ![A man sitting in front of multiple monitors with audio digitization software programs running.](/sites/g/files/omnuum11066/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/library-preservation/files/brucegordon_gazettearticle.jpg?itok=WK1NNDTg) 

 

 *Media Preservation Services audio engineer Bruce Gordon works to digitize and preserve analog content for Harvard.*

##  Library preservation staff races against time to save historical media artifacts.  


 Five years ago, Harvard Library staff brought the [voice of a 20-year-old John F. Kennedy](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/earliest-recording-of-jfk-found-in-harvard-archives/) to life for the world to hear.

 Audio experts at the library’s Media Preservation Services were given an aluminum audio disc with Kennedy’s name on it — part of a University Archives collection of student speeches recorded during a Harvard oration course. They found a turntable that would play the disc, adjusted the recording’s somewhat obscured, uneven sound quality, and converted it into a digital audio file.

 The young Kennedy’s thoughts on the Supreme Court appointment of Hugo Black now can be heard by anyone with an internet connection. That project was an example, albeit a particularly high-profile one, of the importance of the team’s mission to ensure that important historical material is saved while it’s still possible, said Director of Preservation Services Brenda Bernier.

 “We’re fortunate to have on staff the top-tier expertise needed to make all kinds of media content usable by current and future scholars, including materials, like the Kennedy recording, that are one-of-a-kind and would be otherwise inaccessible,” Bernier said.

 Continue reading *[Preserving voice of president — and thousands of others](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/02/preserving-voice-of-president-and-thousands-of-others/)* in the Harvard Gazette.



 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Digital Preservation ](/hlps-tags/digital-preservation)
- [ Media Preservation ](/hlps-tags/media-preservation)
 
 

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