History can be relived at the touch of a button at the G. Robert Vincent Voice Library. Tucked away in the fourth floor west wing of the MSU library, more than 50,000 voices and sounds are housed, creating the nation's largest academic voice library.
Its earliest recording is a Sept. 11, 1888 greeting from Canada's Governor General Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley. Clips of President Bush on the same day in 2001 are a more recent highlight of the collection.
"I think it is interesting, listening to the Hindenberg explosion, Kennedy and Nixon," said voice library employee Jared Riley. "My history knowledge has definitely increased."
The telecommunication, information studies and media junior said he sometimes hears the contradictions in history.
"I remember listening to Nixon talk about being honest," he said.
Riley and 25 other student-workers now are undertaking a digitalization process. They sit and listen to pieces of history for hours on end while transferring the sounds from the 7-inch analog magnetic tape reels into digital files.
In addition to the 10,000 digital files of sound available online at the library's Web site, www.lib.msu.edu/vincent, most of the collection sits catalogued on shelves in the library.
Major broadcasting networks sometimes contact MSU to get their old broadcasts because "it is easier get from us than older archives," said voice library assistant John Shaw.
The library is very willing to make copies of any recording and loan them out like the main library would loan a book.
However, the issue of copyrights arises since the library is filled with other people's voices.
"Copyright is something we are concerned with," Shaw said. "What we make available, we feel we are right to do so."
A purpose of the library is to help the students find whatever they are looking for, Shaw said.
"We don't put barriers up, we knock them down," he said.
The history of the library is as old as its collection. G. Robert Vincent, a private collector and sound engineer who worked in laboratories established by Thomas Edison, acquired wax cylinders through the Edison family that dated back to the late 1800s. These early recordings were the beginning of the huge collection.
MSU asked Vincent to bring his collection to campus in 1962, where the collection was part of the National Voice Library. In 1974, Maurice Crane took over Vincent's collection. Under his leadership, the library grew from 1,400 recordings to 26,000.
"He was tireless in recording and finding sounds for the voice library," he said. "He took the collection public. We were known around the U.S. and the world."
The collection's reputation attracts representatives of actors or production companies looking for certain voices and sounds clips.
"I got a call from a company in California producing a new movie called 'Ask the Dust.'" Shaw said. "We are going to be sending them three voice recordings of broadcaster Walter Winchell.
"The movie's star, Colin Farrell, is going to be portraying a Winchell-like character and they were looking for recordings for his voice training."
Other calls have come from producers of an upcoming Leonardo DiCaprio movie and from the PBS show "NOVA," which requested the only available recording of Sigmund Freud.
Whether the library's work can be seen and heard in major motion pictures or in the depths of a student's paper, preservation and digitalization efforts allow the archives to be used on a daily basis.
"We bring the sounds into the house or dorm," Shaw said. "You can listen to Teddy Roosevelt in conjunction with a paper you are writing. That's where we want to be."
