BOSTON, Jan 13, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Beginning today, JFK fans and students of history alike can go online to
access the most important papers, photos, films and other records of the
35th President's time in office thanks to a new online
archive that Iron Mountain helped to create. The digital archive at www.jfklibrary.org
allows students, teachers, researchers and members of the public to gain
an inside look into the life of President Kennedy and the issues that
defined his presidency like civil rights, nuclear proliferation, space
exploration and more. Launched a week shy of the 50th
anniversary of the inauguration of President Kennedy, the archive
provides broader access to the Kennedy legacy and helps to preserve
sensitive historical records by making digital copies of them.
The digital archive has been four years in the making. The John F.
Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, a division of the National
Archives and Records Administration, and the John F. Kennedy Library
Foundation, the non-profit that lends the library financial and staffing
support, began this massive effort in 2006. Along the way, the
organizations enlisted technology support from AT&T, EMC, Iron Mountain
and Raytheon and received significant financial support from private
donors. To date, the library and its partners have spent countless hours
and an estimated $10 million in financial and technology donations to
digitize and describe the contents of the archive and bring it to life.
"Protecting information and helping others to access it is a big part of
what we do, but it's not often you work on a project of this scale and
historic importance, impacting future generations and students of JFK
and history everywhere," said Bob Brennan, CEO and president of
information management company Iron Mountain. "It's an awesome and
humbling experience, and we're honored to support its development and
success."
To start its online archive, The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
chose to digitize its six, most important collections. These include the
President's White House office files, his personal papers, outgoing
letters, and the photos, videos and audio recorded during his time in
the White House. More than 200,000 documents, 300 audiotapes, 72 film
reels and 1,500 photos from these collections are now available online.
The contents here include a veritable highlight reel of Kennedy's life
and presidency. Students, teachers, researchers and members of the
public can now go online to see President Kennedy's inaugural address;
or to watch him debate President Nixon; or to hear him challenge America
to land first on the moon; and more.
Iron Mountain's Role
Iron Mountain's chief role in the project is to provide a safe home for
master copies of these electronic files. When project designers for the
archive approached Iron Mountain in April 2007, they desired offsite,
highly secure data center space as a form of insurance in the event the
original records and digital files, stored at the library, were ever
lost or damaged.
The library found this home in a sprawling former limestone mine located
200 feet below farms and rolling countryside in Western Pennsylvania. It
is the Iron Mountain Underground, a high-security bunker for millions of
government records, business documents, historical and pop culture
treasures, as well as petabytes of emails, medical images and other
digital files.
This 1000-acre facility operates like a city underground, featuring
backup power for seven days, its own water treatment plant, two fire
trucks and around-the-clock armed security. Stored there are master
recordings belonging to Sony Music, including Frank Sinatra's Night
and Day and Elvis Presley's Nothing but a Hound Dog. The Bill
Gates' Corbis archive is there as is Universal Studios, which uses the
facility's temperature-controlled vaults to protect originals of movies
like E.T., Back to the Future and Jaws.
In addition to providing secure data center space and management, Iron
Mountain contributed to the project by restoring and digitizing 204
videotapes and 224 audio recordings included in the digital archive.
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The video includes personal footage of Kennedy family vacations and
his wedding; CBS TV coverage of his inauguration and debates with
President Nixon; footage filmed by White House communicators; and
other official video from U.S. government agencies.
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The audio captures more than 400 telephone conversations, as well as
radio and State of the Union addresses covering the Cuban Missile
Crisis and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Engineers on Iron
Mountain's film and sound team used lint-free cloths and brushes to
clean these audio and video recordings. Some of the audio tapes also
required "baking," a process of heating up the media to remove moisture.
Once cleaned, Iron Mountain's technicians made two digital copies of
each recording.
For one set of the audio recordings, Iron Mountain digitally enhanced
the volume by removing artificial sounds like pops, crackles and
hissing. The company also created a set of smaller video files more
suitable for watching and streaming over the Internet than the
higher-resolution replica copies. Visit here
for more on the restoration and digitization project.
About the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is one of 13
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.
About Iron Mountain
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM) provides information management
services that help organizations lower the costs, risks and
inefficiencies of managing their physical and digital data. The
company's solutions enable customers to protect and better use their
information--regardless of its format, location or lifecycle stage--so
they can optimize their business and ensure proper recovery, compliance
and discovery. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain manages billions of
information assets, including business records, electronic files,
medical data, emails and more for organizations around the world. Visit www.ironmountain.com
or follow the company on Twitter @IronMountain for more information.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6571645&lang=en
SOURCE: Iron Mountain Incorporated
Media:
Iron Mountain
Dan O'Neill, 617-535-2966
dan.oneill@ironmountain.com
or
Weber Shandwick
Kristen Georgian, 617-520-7042
KGeorgian@webershandwick.com