xxy identifying and digitally preserving crucial materials in voice libraries throughout the United States, the NGSW will provide storage for these digital holdings and public exhibit "space" for the most evocative collections, not unlike physical museums. However, unlike a physical museum, the NGSW faces no space limitations and never needs to rotate items out of the exhibited collection. All exhibits in the NGSW will remain on display permanently, freely available to all visitors.

xxuilding upon the latest research and development of methods for digitally preserving sound and delivering it via the WWW, the NGSW will be designed to serve the diverse needs of high school teachers, college professors, students at all levels, government officials, journalists and engaged citizens worldwide. By bringing the spoken word across the Internet and into living rooms, classrooms, research laboratories, libraries and government offices, this project has the potential to create worldwide virtual communities through the transformative power of language, rhetoric and speech.

xxee also H-Net's related project from Expo 98, Pluralism and Unity, for an exploration of questions central to the study of American history and culture.

• News and Newsmakers: Drawing primarily on the holdings of MSU's Vincent Voice Library, this collection will include selections of speeches by Theodore Roosevelt, Eugene V. Debs, and Buffalo Bill Cody, as well as news broadcasts and special events from 1940 through the 1980s which are currently housed as part of the Historical Voices and Janak Collections at MSU.
  

• 20th Century Inventors and Scientists: From Thomas Edison's first cylinder recordings to John Glenn talking about exploring space, this collection will include recordings that are historically significant both because of their content and their speaker, as well as the technical achievements discussed. These holdings are currently located in the Vincent Voice Library at MSU.
  

• American Life: Using the oral interviews on which Studs Terkel based his books, and which are owned by the Chicago Historical Society, this collection will broadcast a broad range of American experience and stories that span social, political, and cultural life in the 20th Century.
  

• Chicago Neighborhoods: Owned by the Chicago Historical Society, this collection includes family genealogies and oral histories conducted in several Chicago neighborhoods by local high school students. These recordings provide a detiled account of urban life, and offer a full range of neighborhood accents for linguistic study.
  

• Folk Life and Lore: This collection is composed of taped interviews with a variety of American folk artists. Recorded stories of Native American quilters and Mexican American folk artists from across the Midwest are a special strength of the collection. These holdings are currently housed at the MSU Museum.
  

• History and Politics Out Loud: Voices of U.S. presidents, secretaries of state and other government officials make up the vast majority of this collection, which is housed at Northwestern University.
  

• Supreme Court Decisions: U.S. justices and a range of court cases can be heard in these recordings, providing a far greater range of experience to listeners than reading the transcripts alone. This collection is also provided by Northwestern University.
  

• World War II: Including a selection of broadcast news from the Ripps collection at the Vincent Voice Library at MSU, this collection includes broadcast news recorded from 1940 to 1945, from Pearl Harbor to the dropping of the atomic bombs.