Presidential Libraries

But the center, which will cost an estimated $500 million, will also differ from the complexes built by Barack Obama’s predecessors in another way: It won’t actually be a presidential library. In a break with precedent, there will be no research library on site, and none of Mr. Obama’s official presidential records.

I get a sick feeling in my stomach even now as I remember how long it took to answer that question. I started by looking through the library’s “Finding Aids,” a version of a catalogue, in black looseleaf notebooks, which listed the titles of the file folders in each box. Just for Johnson’s “House of Representatives Papers,” the general files from his eleven years in that body, the time before he became a senator and then President, there were three hundred and forty-nine boxes.

The National Archives and Records Administration—which operates presidential library-museums for every president from Herbert Hoover through George W. Bush—won’t be operating either for Obama. His private Obama Foundation, not the government, will own and operate the museum. And there really won’t be a presidential library.

The design for the Obama Presidential Center was unveiled Wednesday at an event attended by former President Obama and Michelle Obama. The Center, slated to be completed in 2021, will be located in the Jackson Park neighborhood of Chicago's South side and it will include three buildings — a museum, forum and library that surround a public plaza. The buildings will be made up of variegated stone with glass openings to allow for natural light and be certified

A library was established by Britain’s high-minded Victorian Liberal prime minister, William Gladstone in the late 19th Century and its now enjoying a boom in use. Unlike the US where all former Presidents establish a library, it is the only Prime Minister's library in the UK.

"It's kind of like a mini-Smithsonian, and when you go there, you normally you think you're going to get history and you're going to learn from them. If presidents want a museum of advertisement, don't turn it over to the federal government."

Before the doors of President Barack Obama's library open on Chicago's South Side, truckloads of White House archives will be shipped to a former furniture store in the northwest suburbs. A massive volume of paperwork, electronic data and artifacts will find a temporary home at the old Plunkett Home Furnishings store in Hoffman Estates, Ill.

“They’re really getting big,” says Hufbauer, who points out that the private funding allows “presidents to build gigantic temples dedicated to themselves.”

That means that presidential scandals or mistakes may get glossed over, and presidential successes highlighted. “The decision about what to display in the very first exhibits is made by the president, along with the National Archives and key advisors who help determine the story and presentation of those artifacts,” says Susan Donius, director of the office of presidential libraries.

From How Presidential Libraries Work

ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN
U.S. Presidential Libraries
In honor of the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, AD visits the libraries of each of the other former commanders in chief

From U.S. Presidential Libraries Photos | Architectural Digest