LARAMIE (AP) - Old audio recordings, including witness accounts to the hanging of gunman Tom Horn and the 1892 Johnson County War, are being converted to digital files that can be heard over the Internet on home computers.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has awarded a grant to dramatically increase public and scholarly access to information found in University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center's historical audio collections and other institutions around the country.

"Many archives, libraries, historical societies, and museums are beginning to look past their still photography and paper-based collections to audio and video materials stored in a variety of media," said Mark Shelstad, UW Heritage Center archivist.

He says the need to create digital audio files is becoming increasingly important, with only three companies worldwide now making audio recorders, and only one firm making blank tape.

At least 2,000 audio recordings from UW and other institutions around the country will be made accessible through online catalogs and exhibits.

"Users will be able to enter a search term in the catalog, receive a list of audio files containing the search term used in a transcript, and then locate and listen to the occurrences of the search term in the audio file," Shelstad said in a statement released Wednesday by the university. "The audio files will be made available with streaming services so that users will not need to download the entire file before listening to them. Teacher resources will also be created for each collection."

The Wyoming audio recordings consist of 97 audio cassette tapes, 16 reel-to-reel tapes and 247 SoundScriber discs - a technology used in the 1940s and 1950s. In all, 572 hours of recordings will be made available.

The largest collection is 150 hours of interviews that Big Horn rancher and business owner Robert Helvey recorded with Wyoming and Montana pioneers, who discussed settlement and livestock operations. Helvey's interviews also contain reminiscences of the 1892 Johnson County War, a conflict among cattlemen, rustlers, hired guns, soldiers and politicians that symbolizes the early culture of Wyoming and the West.

The other large Wyoming collection includes 50 hours of interviews with Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado pioneers conducted by UW staff from 1947-1955. Interviewees include early Wyoming legislators and governors, ranchers and business owners discussing working and ranching experiences, and observers of the hanging of Tom Horn.

A professional gunman hired by cattlemen to prevent rustling, Horn was hung in 1903 for allegedly murdering a 14-year-old boy.

Other Wyoming collections include interviews with people associated with the recovery of a 1955 United Air Lines crash in the mountains west of Laramie; a 1951 speech given by a United Mine Workers of America district leader at the Rock Springs Labor Temple; and audio tapes of a program describing the early history of Laramie, told by Clarice Whittenburg, a UW elementary education professor.

Also proposed for conversion are interviews with Michael Maltese, cartoon story editor for Warner Brothers who developed characters Pepe Le Pew, Road Runner and Wiley Coyote, and Yosemite Sam; interviews with architect Victor Gruen, who designed the first fully enclosed shopping center; along with other interviews.

The American Heritage Center is the university's repository of manuscripts and special collections, rare books, and the university archives. Students and scholars from around the globe use these collections for research.

Last year researchers traveled from 45 states and 12 nations.