Georgetown University (Bioethics Research Library)

The Bioethics Research Library at Georgetown University will preserve and make freely available over 350 hours of recorded lectures presented at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (KIE). The recordings address the major bioethical concerns of the past 50 years and were delivered by KIE scholars and other prominent experts including doctors, philosophers, public health officials, theologians, and scientists. The audiovisual recordings are currently held on a variety of at-risk formats, including compact cassettes, VHS tapes, compact discs, DVDs, and quarter-inch open reel magnetic tapes. Both analog and digital formats require reformatting and enhanced descriptive metadata to ensure future accessibility to and discovery of the recordings. The lectures will then be made freely available to the public via Digital Georgetown, a unified portal for Georgetown University’s institutional repository and digital collections. We expect that the recordings will be especially relevant to those grappling with the many ethical issues that have risen to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic.