Want to read President Kennedy's original papers on the Cuban missile crisis? Or hear a recording of his inaugural address, in which he famously said, "Ask not what your country can do for you..."?

Until now you would have had to pack your bag and travel to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. But thanks to an ambitious new project to digitize the library's 48 million pages of documents—along with 400,000 photos, 7.5 million feet of film, 9,000 hours of audio and 1,200 hours of video—people all over the world will be able to access these historical treasures from the comfort of their own homes.

The man heading up the initiative is Tom Putnam, the library's director. He says it will take many years to digitally scan the entire collection and make it publicly available on the Internet. But he found time to talk to us about the power and potential of information:

When did you truly understand the power of information?
Caroline Kennedy is married to Ed Schlossberg, who worked with the Ellis Island Project to scan and digitize all the manifests for the ships that came in through Ellis Island. Now there's a website where people can go to study their own genealogy and understand how their ancestors came to America. We're all moved by history and movies. But the power of the Ellis Island Project is that it gives every individual a personal connection to information that is also part of our country's history.

Why it is important to put the Kennedy Library's collection online?
Right now the only people who can access it are those with the means to travel to Boston. This project will allow students who live in Senegal, West Africa, to better understand how President Kennedy supported their country's call for independence—from a computer right there in Dakar. Secondly, in our current library model, there's an inherent tension between preserving documents and providing access to them. When researchers come in, they want to see and touch the original document but that puts the document at risk. So by digitizing the document, we not only provide access to a worldwide audience, we can actually preserve the documents because they don't need to be handled as many times.

What's the most intriguing piece of information you've learned about President Kennedy?
I'm continually surprised that I can be stirred by his speeches. A remarkable thing about him and the rhetoric he used is that it seems almost immortal. It lives on in a way that stands the test of time. There is also a certain consistency to what he said that harkens back to our country's founding ideals—and can be applied to contemporary issues.

Who are your information heroes?
I admire individuals who can take primary-source information and craft a wonderful story. I'm thinking of someone like presidential biographer David McCullough, who can look at the span of all documents related to a president like John Adams or Harry Truman and make it accessible to the general public in a way that engages them. These are people who contribute to the wealth of the nation by sharing those stories with others.

What do you think of Google's effort to digitally scan library books and make them searchable online? Is that project similar to yours?
Google designed a machine that can quickly turn the pages of a book as it takes a low-resolution digital scan, which is great. But our project is different because we're dealing with priceless documents, so we can't have a machine do the scanning. It has to be done by a real person wearing white gloves to ensure the integrity of the documents. Also we need to use a higher-resolution scan because what makes our documents so interesting is that they contain President Kennedy's handwriting. We have to capture his marginalia so people can actually see the small handwritten changes President Kennedy made to his speeches.

Finish this sentence: Information is...
I'm a traditional historian, so historical information is truly the essence of who we are as a people.

Finish this sentence: In the future, information will be...
Information will be accessible to everyone, so you will need fewer gatekeepers. I think this will democratize history. Individuals will be able to make their own decisions about history rather than being told what to think.