Audiovisual Resources

The audiovisual collections available in the Church History Catalog have been digitized from source materials of varying types and conditions. Due to the technological limitations of early conference recordings, deterioration over time, and other factors, completeness and quality may vary from one recording to the next. The sound quality has been enhanced, but there are some variations in volume.

General conference, digital audio, 1936, 1938–2012 (AV 3501)

This collection contains all known existing audio recordings of general conference held by the Church History Department and are accessible through the Church History Catalog media player. Not all recordings of conference have survived to the present day, so gaps do exist. The finding aid, which can be found on the left under Collection Contents, lists available conferences chronologically, with every session between 1936 and 1970 described in detail with time stamps for speakers and musical numbers. Please note that the post-1971 recordings of conference talks are not accessible here because they are available through ChurchofJesusChrist.org. The music and other portions of some post-1971 conferences are currently not available online; if you need access to any of these, please submit a query through our Ask Us service.

(Help us add to the Historical Record: Since October 1924, general conference has been broadcast on the radio. Some families had early recording equipment used in the 1920s–1940s, and they may have even placed a microphone close to the radio to record general conference talks that the Church History Department does not have. If anyone knows of existing recordings family members may have that could help fill in our gaps, please contact the Church History Department.)

General conference, digital video, 1949–2017 (AV 3500)

This collection contains video recordings of general conference. Some of the early videos in this collection are selected addresses, and some are full sessions. This collection is currently incomplete, and more recordings will be made available as they are digitized, so please check back for new content. Please note that the post-1971 recordings of conference talks are not accessible here because they are available through ChurchofJesusChrist.org. The music and other portions of some post-1971 conferences are currently not available online; if you need access to any of these, please submit a query through our Ask Us service.

A Historic Look at the Church’s Use of Media

This article in Church News provides information on Church involvement in the media through the years and includes references to performances by the Choir and conference broadcasts. It includes historic photographs and a time line.

General Conference on ChurchofJesusChrist.org

Video, audio, and written transcripts of conference talks from 1971 to the most recent conference are available on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Conference talks on this website are organized by year, month, and session. Speakers are listed in the order they spoke, along with their photograph, the title of their discourse, and their name. Business such as the sustaining of General Authorities and Officers is also included. Conference talks are also discoverable by a topical search on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org home page. Type a topic in the search bar, and click Search. Fine-tune the search by selecting General Conference, found under the search bar. Or search talks about (topic) and select the first result, General Conference Talks About (Topic), to open a list of several talks on the subject. The same method can be used to search by the name of a General Authority or the title of a talk.