With just a few clicks of a computer mouse and taps on a keyboard, you can access some of the rich history of Salem.

A new Web site – Salem, NH History on Demand – was officially launched on Memorial Day. It can be accessed online at www. salemnhhistory.com.

Students, residents and other visitors can use the video on demand site to discover the early history of Rockingham Park Racetrack, view burial grounds, hear the wartime experiences of local veterans, see old photos, and much more.

“We look at it as a virtual museum,” said Bob Berthel, the audio visual coordinator for the Salem School District, and one of the project’s organizers. The Web site is a cooperative effort of the school district’s media services and Salem Community Television. It allows visitors to access the archives of those two organizations and the Salem Historical Society. “It’s a labor of love,” said Berthel who works with SCTV’s executive director, Tom Giarrosso. “We just capitalized on a lot of the content sitting on the shelves.”

The pair has more than 30 years of archived video and audio tapes to tap into. Material was digitized to make the project possible.

“This is kind of a race against time in some ways,” said Berthel, while holding a reel of an original recording that is corroding. “We have to do something quickly to preserve some of this history.”

Salem was settled in 1652, and was originally part of Massachusetts. The boundary between New Hampshire and Massachusetts was re-established in 1741, and Salem was incorporated nine years later by Colonial Gov. Benning Wentworth, according to the site.

Currently, the site’s main page features nearly a dozen documentaries focusing on Salem and the Merrimack Valley. Viewers can learn about the razed Baptist Church on Main Street, discover the history of Canobie Lake Park’s ballroom, tour the East Main Street historical district, learn about the history of Salem’s fire department and more.

From the main page, visitors can access other sections of the website, including a historical postcard and photo gallery, and video and audio recordings that have captured some of the history of the community and its people.

“It’s a great resource about the town,” said Giarrosso. “We’re trying to gather as much information and put it on one location on the web so it’s easy to access.”

In the photo gallery, there are more than 50 images, some in black in white, of Bodwell Heel Factory, the Depot, Hannah Tenney Church, Salem Schoolhouse No. 5, Spicket Bridge and other places. The photos were provided by Dan Zavisza of the historical society.

Another section includes The Salem Learning Channel series, “NH Heroes: Veterans of World War II,” which was produced by Ron Penczak and Gabriel Bruno, and video interviews with other local residents.

Among the residents featured are former teacher, coach and administrator Doug Cook who reminisces about Woodbury and Salem High schools from the 1960s through the 1980s.

The Web site also includes video archives of a lecture series by the Historical Society that Zavisza produced.

The Web site was inspired by the contributions of Salem Observer publisher Richard Noyes and lifelong resident Howard Turner, who are now deceased. The two men, who were Historical Society members, teamed up in the early 1970s to produce “Project Perpetuate.”

Interviews with friends, neighbors, and public officials were recorded on audio cassette tapes to create an oral history series.

“They were using electronic media to tell history, preserve history,” said Berthel.

Their series, converted to MP3 format, can be heard on the site. Among the people recorded were Mrs. Douglas Seed, who talked with Turner about the early telephones in Salem, and Alice Hall, one of the town’s first librarians.