Imagine being able to hear a great historical figure’s voice. It would add such richness to the facts and dates about her or his life. Starting today, Wikipedia will make that possible with the Wikipedia Voice Intro Project, adding short voice recordings to the online encyclopedia. And that’s truly awesome.

A new project called WikiVIP was announced by Wikipedia today that seeks to add the voice of celebrities and other notable people to the online encyclopedia. The project is the brainchild of Wikipedia editors Andy Mabbett and Andrew Gray, who thought that the encyclopedia could do with more sound files and began approaching celebrities to request short audio clips of their voices. WikiVIP, which stands for “Wikipedia Voice Intro Project” sets out to make sure there is a public and freely reusable record of what notable people sound like for “current and future generations.”