When people visit the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Director Tom Putnam wants them to feel as if they’re traveling back in time. “The way that the museum is designed, it’s like you’re going back into the 1960s and JFK’s voice is the primary voice you hear,” he says. “We want people to see the world through his eyes.”

And they do. Completed in 1979, the I.M. Pei-designed museum overlooks the harbor islands and the city where Kennedy launched his political career. A combination of permanent and temporary exhibits celebrate his legacy.

For the last three years, the museum has focused on a string of 50th anniversaries, including Kennedy’s campaign, his inauguration, and high moments in his presidency such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and his Civil Rights speech. The series concludes with the anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, marked by an exhibition called “A Nation Remembers.” It will be on view through President’s Day February 17.

“Our institution really tries to focus on his life and his legacy,” Putnam says of the new exhibit. “Obviously the assassination is an important part of the story and we tell that story in our museum, but even when do we so, we try to focus on what he meant to the country and the ideals he personified and how we can continue to pay honor to everything he stood for.”

“A Nation Remembers” will primarily explore what it was like to live in the immediate aftermath of the assassination and how the nation remembered him then. There are items in that exhibit based on his funeral: the flag that was draped over his coffin, the saddle from the riderless horse, and video of the funeral procession. “It is very evocative and will remind people of not only what happened, but for people who lived through it, how they watched it on their own television sets with their families,” Putnam says.

Though focused on a man who died 50 years ago, the museum stays relevant by highlighting ways that Kennedy’s accomplishments still resonate. “Many of the issues that he grappled with are issues that our country still faces today,” Putnam says. “He harkened back to our founding ideals, and reminded us of areas where we were falling short, say in civil rights, or that we want to be a country that really stands for peace, negotiating with other countries, and the importance of using technology to find a solution to poverty, tyranny, and disease.

“He was a very modern president,” he adds. “He was probably the beginning of the modern presidency the way we know it.”

The museum has digitized a lot of content, showing video in a more dramatic fashion with more life-sized and HD projections. For instance, visitors used to watch the inaugural address on a TV monitor. The footage has been digitized, vastly increasing its quality, and it’s now projected onto an entire wall. “When you walk into that exhibit, it really feels like you’re sitting there on that cold, January day just a few seats away from him while he gives the inaugural address.”

Most visitors are drawn to the exhibits that make the president come alive, including a coconut shell from when he and his crew were rescued off an island. “People love the press conferences because, again, he’s so alive and so witty. They love anything about the family and Mrs. Kennedy and entertaining at the White House,” Putnam notes.

People from all over the world visit Boston to honor JFK, and Putnam understands that part of the president’s allure is his local roots. “People take a certain pride that he was a native son of Boston and the first Irish Catholic President, the youngest man ever elected to the presidency,” Putnam says. “We certainly want people … to come here and celebrate his life and legacy.”