Staff members at the library's American Folklife Center are soliciting churches, synagogues, mosques and others for copies of sermons or passionate speeches that focus on the significance of the Jan. 20 inauguration of Obama as the first black U.S. president.

The Folklife Center is looking for both video and audio clips, all to be preserved in a public collection that includes interviews after Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"If a historian asks 'How did Americans react to Obama's inauguration,' we'll have immediate responses to this powerful event," said Dr. David A. Taylor, head of research and programs at the American Folklife Center.

The "Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project" marks the first time the library has gathered this sort of material from a U.S. presidential inauguration. Taylor says the project is especially timely — with the inauguration coming a day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Jan. 19 — and as it ties into King's reputation as a great orator.

Nearly 70% of the 4,000 collections at the center involve the spoken word, whether iit is on paper, audio or video.

Michael Taft, head archivist at the Folklife Center, says it was decided to collect inauguration-themed sermons because that speech form is poetic, dramatic — and at some churches, "an important art form."

Among The Folklife Center's vast collection of songs, pictures and speeches, are children's drawings commemorating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and recorded interviews with 23 Americans who endured slavery.