Scope and Contents

The thirty-three interviews total approximately twenty-six and one half hours in length and exist in five formats: digital, BetaCam SP, 1/2" VHS, cassette audio tapes, and transcripts. All five formats document the same interview content for each interviewee. The collection contains original, master, and reference videos, audio tapes, transcripts, production footage (stock and b-roll) and compact disks, documenting thirty-three Nobel laureates. All interviews were conducted by Neil Hollander. The production footage is from a variety of non-profit and commercial sources and there are no transcripts or time logs. The production footage was used in the exhibition interactive Ask the Prizewinners and the Nobel Prize: 100 Years of Creativity and Innovation (interactive CD-ROM). This CD-ROM explores the motivation and vision of Nobel laureates and the history of Alfred Nobel and his prize. This CD-ROM is a resource for educators and others interested in interdisciplinary approaches to stimulating creativity. The Ernst Otto Fischer (Chemistry 1973) interview was not conducted in English and there is no transcript. The Hans-Uno Bengtson interview documents a Swedish physicist and there is no transcript. Five interviews include laureate spouses: Kirsten Fischer Lindahl, Isabella Karle, Margaret Kroto, Nancy Mullis, and Phyllis Osheroff. The video interviews and transcripts are unedited. A three minute edited version of the interviews appears on the web at http:///www.NOfestiBEL.com.

Arrangement

The collection is organized into six series.

Biographical / Historical

The National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution and the Deutsches Museum collaborated in June 2000 to conduct video interviews with thirty-three Nobel Laureates. Interviews were conducted in Lindau, Germany, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the United States. The video documentation subsequently formed the core of the Nobel Voices Video History Project and the exhibition Nobel Voices: Celebrating 100 Years of the Nobel Prize. The interviewees were asked about their motivations, visions for the future, and opinions on the nature of creativity and innovation. In the interviews, the laureates speak about their passion for their work, their childhood inspirations, the spirit of discovery, and the personal meaning of the Nobel Prize.

The Nobel Voices Video History Project documents and preserves examples of the quest for innovation and its important messages for future generations. Interviewees were: Werner Arber, Hans-Uno Bengton, Gunther Blobel, Paul Boyer, Claude Cohen-Tannouudji, Johann Deisenhofer, Kristen Lindahl Deisenhofer, Manfried Eigen, Richard Ernst, Edmond Fischer, Ernst Otto Fischer, Paul Greengard, Jerome Karle, Isabella Karle, Klaus von Klitzing, Walter Kohn, Harold Kroto, Robert B. Laughlin, David Lee, Rudolph A. Marcus, Kary B. Mullis, Nancy Mullis, Erwin Neher, Douglass D. Osheroff, Phyliss L. Osheroff, William D. Phillips, John Polanyi, John Pople, Gerardus t'Hooft, Robert C. Richardson, Jack Steinberger, Samuel C.C. Ting, Charles Townes, Martinus Veltman, and Jody Williams.

The Lemelson Center received generous support for the Nobel Voices exhibit from the Lemelson Foundation. The exhibit was developed in collaboration with the Deutsches Museum, Bonn, Germany, and the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, with the cooperation of the Meetings of Nobel Prize Winners in Lindau, Germany, annually convened by Countess Sonja Bernadotte of Wisborg, Sweden. Nobel Voices explores the motivation and vision of Nobel laureates and the history of Alfred Nobel and his prize. It features personal video interviews of laureates, candid photographic portraits, and original artifacts, including Albert Einstein's pipe and William Faulkner's tweed jacket and typewriter.

Visitors to the exhibition pass through eight sections telling the story of the Nobel Prize and those who have achieved it: The Nobel Prizes, Nobel Encounters, Inventing the Future, Alfred Nobel: The Man Behind the Prize, The World of the Laureates, Through Young Artists' Eyes, The Nobel Laureates in Lindau, and Images of Nobel Prize Winners from the National Portrait Gallery. For more information about the Nobel Prize and Nobel Laureates see http://nobelprize.org/ administered by the Nobel Foundation.