Even though Obama has a few years left in his term, The Barack H. Obama Foundation is already starting to plan his presidential library.
That’s not unusual — all recent presidents have made similar plans during their presidency. A non-profit organization is formed to collect money to build and endow the library (not just a collection of papers of historical interest, but also a museum with educational programs). As I understand it, the endowment pays for some of the programs and maintenance of the library after it is built. The rest comes from a mixture of private and taxpayer money. Because these libraries have been getting more grandiose with time, the government is now requiring the size of the endowment to be proportional to the size of the library.
The foundations building the libraries decide what is included in them, so there is the worry the libraries give an overly rosy view of the presidency. And many of the contributions are made while the president is still in office, so there’s also the worry that special favors might be granted.
It’s an interesting phenomenon. Do you know of any other democratic/republican countries that have anything similar to this? Do you have any feelings about the matter one way or another?
February 20, 2014
No, I do not have any feelings about the matter. I am only sad that I am unable to put all my collection of books onto digital devices so that I can be less cluttered.
You could, but it would take a long time. I’ve actually done it with a couple of books — mainly so I could read them in larger print.
I’ve been to 2 of them: the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri and the Clinton Library in Little Rock.
One positive of a presidential library can be the economic impact it has.
Clinton Library in Little Rock Wikipedia:
After the location for the project was announced, many new businesses began to develop in the surrounding area. Numerous hotels, restaurants, housing complexes, offices, retail stores were established. The revived River Market district, a dining and retail area near the library, was created as a result of its location. In addition, over $1 billion of new real estate has been invested in downtown Little Rock. The world headquarters of Heifer International is located just beyond the library.
The center has spurred an estimated $2 billion in new projects in the surrounding parts of Little Rock. Since its opening, the library has had over 1.64 million visitors. The museum had 302,583 visitors in 2009 and 273,108 visitors in 2008. There were approximately 500,000 visitors during its first year (November 2004–2005).
Thanks for the great information. We’ve been to the Eisenhower one, which we loved, and to the Clinton one, well, ur, not so much.
What did you think of the Truman library?
The Truman Library is reflective of the time in which it was built. The museum has a replica of the Oval Office as it was when Truman used it. The rest of the museum is a fairly good museum as I recall, but it’s been 7 years and we’ve been is so many museums that we’re “museumed out” — burnt out on museums.
What most people see is not the library in any of the Presidential libraries — it’s the museum. The library part is usually only generally seen by those doing research in the presidential records.
Actually, I guess we’ve seen three. We also visited the museum at the Lincoln Presidential Library, which was completed 9 years ago and is funded by the state of Illinois.
We’ve also visited a house associated with the presidential library of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, actually the last home he lived in — Beauvoir, in Biloxi, Mississippi. Both the library and the house were badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The house has been restored.
When we were there, a new library building — with museum — was under construction. The new museum apparently glorifies the Confederacy and the “lost cause.” The house, on the other hand, focuses more on other aspects of Jefferson Davis, including service in the Mexican-American War and the U.S. Senate. Most of Davis’ personal papers do not reside in Biloxi. Instead, they’re scattered across several universities and the New York Public Library.
Oh my goodness, when I saw the title of your latest post I got this empty, sinking feeling that you were going to publicly call me into account for frivolously throwing the Clinton Library name around in previous comments and ask me to write an essay about my own visit to the library!
Well, Mike, one of your posters, is quite correct that the Clinton Presidential Library is indeed a welcome boom to the local economy. Most of the locals however such as myself think it, architecturally speaking, a bit strange looking and it is often the subject of much ridicule. Those in Arkansas who have never found any favor in the 42nd President whatsoever seem to have high hopes that after Mike Huckabee has served as President of the United States in the not to distant future the Clinton Library will be torn down and replaced with the Huckabee Presidential Library. I, on the other hand being an Independent have no real thoughts on the matter.
As far as other countries, I am aware of a number of statues here and there but no facilities similar to the libraries built here in the United States.
Alan, I agree about the design of the library. It was especially awful before the trees were planted. It is, however, an improvement over what was there before. We visited that area several times when the Spaghetti Warehouse was in the old railroad station that is now part of the Clinton Library complex. There was also an antique business there we liked, but, for the most part, the area was pretty rundown. (We live about 60 or so miles to northwest of you.)
Well greetings to you Mike. Nice to make your acquaintance. Your proximity to the area certainly explains your expertise on the matter! 🙂
GO, Go Mike Huckabee 😀
Actually I (husband too) are middle of the aisle Republicans & we liked Clinton.
Alan,
Your comment about the Clinton library plus an article I read (tomorrow’s post) inspired this one. We made a special trip when we were in Arkansas to see the Clinton library/museum. We thought it was so bad/over the top that we were happy we went. We’re still shaking our heads. I’m glad it helped the local area.
the marine got to visit monticello when we lived in virginia. i’ve always liked Jefferson . . . and think of his home like a library. but I don’t think that qualifies probably.
the only one i’ve personally visited is LBJ’s in austin. and that’s only because we were driving through there. I remember it as an unbearably hot and humid day. and a huge ostentatious palace of a building. he was not a favorite of mine in the least.
i’m an independent like alan g.
handsome alan g. as bhb and i both attest . . . and now that we’ve embarrassed him…
welcome alan g.
monk here has a wonderful community! and i digress.
would like to visit more libraries. especially truman’s and eisenhower’s and kennedy’s.
As I said above, we saw Eisenhower’s years ago, and we so moved/impressed that we went to see Clinton’s. If I went to another one it would be Truman’s.
Certainly not Australia. Here the tradition is more the previous head of government to go on to highly paid corporate gigs. America is well ahead of us on this.
Yes, we Americans do take ourselves seriously.
LOLOL.
hadn’t thought of that monk… til you said it to evan.
we DO rather take ourselves seriously.
i have to think about what i think about that. LOL.
other than we seem to be serious about all the wrong things usually.
We don’t dedicate anything as grandiose as a special library either…
they might get a street/road named after them, they might be remembered for a policy (that didn’t go down well), or they might have been promoting something worthwhile for the citizens…but usually they sounding their own trumpet at election time to re-elected again. They might get an overseas important posting like Mike Moore and more recently Helen Clark – they pop up from time to time in the news..
we have a different system to you – I think it is changing for the coming one, whenever that is – but I forget technical details of how we vote, what for and for whom 🙂
The grandiosity is what has me shaking my head. And the fact they plan a new one every four to eight years.