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Originally Posted by Lovelyallison
I like books as much as the next guy, but is the library a real tourist attraction?
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Yes, if you're interested in politics in general or in the Clinton presidency (or possibly both Clinton presidencies, depending on what happens in November).
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Originally Posted by Danielle Reid
It's not really a library as in walls of books. From my understanding it's just a presidential museum dedicated to the Clintons. I've only been in there long enough to pee. They have guards and metal detectors in there. Not my idea of a "library".
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Well... The Clinton library (and other Presidential libraries, starting with the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa--a community you've never heard of, I'm sure) are run by the National Library and Records Administration (NARA), and a large part of each library is behind the scenes. They are repositories for all of the official papers and documents of each Presidential administration so memorialized. Along with the repository of papers (and other materials), each library is associated with a museum where some of the artifacts of each administration are on display, along with other exhibits about the President, his (at least until/unless Mrs. Clinton is elected) and his time in office. As Wikipedia notes:
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The thirteen presidential libraries maintain over 400 million pages of textual materials; nearly ten million photographs; over 15 million feet (5,000 km) of motion picture film; nearly 100,000 hours of disc, audiotape, and videotape recordings; and approximately half a million museum objects. These varied holdings make each library a valuable source of information and a center for research on the Presidency.
The most important textual materials in each library are those created by the President and his staff in the course of performing the official duties. Libraries also house numerous objects including family heirlooms, items collected by the President and his family, campaign memorabilia, awards, and the many gifts given to the President by American citizens and foreign dignitaries. These gifts range in type from homemade items to valuable works of art. Curators in Presidential libraries and in other museums throughout the country draw upon these collections for historical exhibits.
Other significant holdings include the personal papers and historical materials donated by individuals associated with the President. These individuals may include Cabinet officials, envoys to foreign governments, political party associates, and the President's family and personal friends. Several libraries have undertaken oral history programs that have produced tape-recorded memoirs. A third body of materials comprises the papers accumulated by the President prior to, and following, his Presidency. Such collections include documents relating to Roosevelt's tenure as Governor of New York and Dwight D. Eisenhower's long military career.
With the exception of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and upon their own deaths, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, every American president since Hoover is or has chosen to be buried at his presidential library. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery; Johnson is buried at his ranch in the hill country of Texas, west of Austin; Carter plans to be buried near his home in Plains, Georgia.[10] George W. Bush has a burial plot in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, Texas.[11]
Unlike all other Presidents whose libraries are part of the NARA system, Ford's library and museum are geographically separate buildings, located in different parts of Michigan; Ford is buried at his museum in Grand Rapids, while the library is in Ann Arbor.
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The part of the Clinton (and other presidential) library that would strike you as being most like a library isn't open to the general public, but usually used by scholars or writers working on articles or books about the president in question. Then again, you probably could (if you wanted to) get to use that part of the library (I don't think there's any sort of credentialing or qualification for getting back there); you just have to make arrangements; I don't think you can just walk in and demand to start rifling through the papers.
I've visited the Clinton Library and Museum and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but that was in large part because when I visited, there was a special exhibit of St. Louis Cardinals memorabilia on loan from the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum, and I'm a St. Louis native and therefore a huge Cardinals fan.
Now, my one question is... if Mrs. Clinton wins in November... after her term(s) of office are completed, will she combine her Library with her husband's in Little Rock, or will she opt for a second, separate library/museum of her own (I'd say probably in Chicago (her birthplace, unless Presidential libraries are one-to-a-city, and I believe Obama's will be going there).
In addition to the NARA administered Presidential libraries, there are also nine outside the NARA system, which memorialize presidents before Hoover.
You can find out everything you probably want to know about the Presidential libraries here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_library
I'll shut up now.
Cheers,
bcg
