over 400,000 still photographs taken from 1863 to 1984, over of film shot between 1910 and 1983, and 11,000 reels of audio recordings from 1910 to 1985. Oral-history project Begun in 1964, the oral-history project was a unique undertaking to document and preserve interviews with those associated with Kennedy. Initially expected to have about 150 participants, today it contains over 1,100 interviews and continues to this day. It is modelled after a program by the Columbia University Oral History Research Office, the world's oldest, which began in 1948. At its conception, while serving as Attorney General, Robert Kennedy speculated that some of the interviews, such as ones relating to the Cuban Missile Crisis, might have to be sealed for a while due to containing "highly classified material." He said that although the emphasis would be on releasing everything as soon as possible, some items might remain closed for 10 to 25 years. Because the interviewees are allowed to review their transcripts before the interviews are released for use by scholars, the audio may differ from the written record; so that the interviewees may disambiguate any misunderstanding in their speech and make it clear in a written form. Artifacts The library keeps a wide range of artifacts, many of which can be found in their respective exhibits. One is the original coconut on which a rescue message was inscribed by Kennedy to rescue the crew of the PT-109, which was delivered to coastwatcher Reginald Evans by Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, natives of the Solomon Islands. The Ernest Hemingway Collection The library is also home to a collection of documents and belongings from Ernest Hemingway. The collection was established in 1968 following an exchange of letters between Hemingway's widow Mary and Jacqueline Kennedy that confirmed that Hemingway's papers would be archived there. In 1961, despite a U.S. travel ban to Cuba, President Kennedy had arranged to allow Mary Hemingway to go there to claim her recently deceased husband's documents and belongings. A room for the collection was dedicated on July 18, 1980, by Patrick Hemingway and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The Ernest Hemingway Collection spans Hemingway's career, and includes "ninety percent of existing Hemingway manuscript materials, making the Kennedy Library the world's principal center for research" on his life and work. It includes: Over 1000 manuscripts of varying lengths, including hand-written drafts of The Sun Also Rises and dozens of hand-drafted alternate