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Government Information Quarterly

Volume 12, Number 1, 1995

Discussion Forum:
Promoting Education for Information Resources Management
in the Federal Government
Charles R. McClure ................................................................................. 1

Making History: The Sitting Modern President and the National Archives
Brian Chandler Thompson ................................................................... 17

The Birth of the Tenth Presidential Library:
The Bush Presidential Materials Project, 1993-1994
David E. Alsobrook ................................................................................... 33

The Nixon Presidential Materials Staff
Clarence F. Lyons, Jr .................................................................................... 43

The Lyndon B. Johnson Library in the Information Age
Mary K. Knill ................................................................................................. 57

The John F. Kennedy Library
Frank Rigg ............................................................................................ 71

No Signs of Mid-Life Crisis: The Eisenhower Library at Thirty-something
Martin M. Teasley .................................................................................. 83

Harry S. Truman and His Library: Past Accomplishments
and Plans for the Future
Raymond H. Geselbracht ...................................................................... 93

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: Looking to the Future
Lynn A. Bassanese ................................................................................ 103

Reinventing the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library
Timothy Walch ........................................................................................ 113

Contributors ................................................................................................. 127

REVIEWS

Freedom under Fire: U.S. Civil Liberties in Times of War
By Michael Linfield
Reviewed by Harold C. Relyea ..................................................................... 129

Film Preservation, 1993: A Study of the Current State
of American Film Preservation
By the Librarian of Congress
Reviewed by David L. Austin .............................................................. 130

The Nation's Great Library. Herbert Putnam
and the Library of Congress, 1899~-1939
By Jane Aikin Rosenburg
Reviewed by Norman D. Stevens ............................................................... 131

Protecting Privacy in Computerized Medical Information
By U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment
Reviewed by Elaine Russo Martin ......................................................... 132

Brian Chandler Thompson

Tradition, law, and the model of the modern Presidential library cement the close institutional ties which bind the nation's chief executive and the chief recordkeeper, a relationship which comes into flourish in the post-presidency. Although existing statute addresses limited formal interaction between an incumbent administration and the National Archives and Records, Administration (NARA), in fact, the day- to-day relationship has evolved to incorporate diverse and expanding activities, particularly under President Bill Clinton. These functions anticipate the eventual transfer of records management responsibility from the Executive Office of the President to NARA upon the conclusion of each administration, and the agency's future role in administering a presidet's library. In this essay, the curent administration's liaison to the National Archives surveys the contemporaneous relationship between NARA and sitting modern Presidents, with emphasis on the Clinton White House.

David E. Alsobrook

The Bush Presidential Library and Museum, the tenth Presidential library, will be built on the campus of Texas A&M University between 1995 and 1997 and administered by the National Achives. It will be the archival depository for all of George Bush's Vice-Presidential and Presidential records and memorabilia as well as voluminous personal papers dealing with his life before and after his service in the White House. Every Presidential library undergoes an evolution from a Presidential materials project to a fully functioning facility, and the Bush Library currently is in its earliest period of development. The Bush Presidential Materials Project is systematically processing President Bush's records and museum objects for exhibit when the library opens to the public in 1997. The Bush Library will be the most highly computerized Pesidential library to date, with automated systems, including an optical scanner for documents, facilitating archival processing and reference services.

Clarence F. Lyons, Jr.

This article describes the holdings and activities of the Nixon Project at the National Archives and the process of opeing the Nixon Presidential materials to the public. Despite the controversies and legal disputes involving these materials, the Nixon Project has released a significant amount of these White House materials for public examination and research.

Mary K. Knill

The main purpose of the LBJ Library is to provide researchers access to information in its holdings. Advances in information technology provide new methods for facilitating accessibility, and researchers have begun to expect the advantages which this technology affords. In an effort to meet researchers' expectations and to facilitate access, the LBJ Library has undertaken several projects to convert traditional finding aids to digitized format and has begun conversion of some original records.

Frank Rigg

Housed since 1979 in a landmark I.M. Pei building, the Kennedy Library is noted for the large number of researchers it serves, its new museum, and its educational programs which encourage thoughtful citizen participation in the democratic process. The Library preserves and makes available important collections related to the life of John Kennedy and mid-20th-century American politics and government; it contains 32 million pages of documents, 180,000 photographs, 7 million feet of film, and over 15,000 museum objects, and also includes the papers of Ernest Hemingway. The Library is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. A public-private partnership with the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation provides private funds to support many programs.

Martin M. Teasley

Midway through its fourth decade of existence, the Eisenhower Library continues to witness steady growth in scholarly demand for its rich historical holdings. An ambitious manuscript acquistions program, in concert with declassification efforts, has insured the constant opening of new materials. The Library's public programs experienced a renaissance during the year-long Eisenhower Centenial celebration in 1990 that carries over to the present.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library:
Looking to the Future

Lynn A. Bassanese

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, was the first of the American Presidential Libraries. Conceived and designed by President Roosevelt, the Library and Museum have provided scholastic support for thousands of reseachers, new and innovative educational opportunities for students, and interesting and informative exhibits for hundreds of thousands of visitors. The Library continues to lead the way in historical research with the creation of a chronology of FDR's life in a database format available through Internet. The Chonology will eventually be the backbone of a worldwide index to scholarly materials on the Roosevelt period. As the Library celebrates 60 years in 1999, it will be on the cutting edge of the technology and communication breakthroughs in the field of historical research.

Timothy Walch

Presidential libraries serve a wide range of customers including scholars, school children, tourists, seniors, and members of civic organizations, among other groups. Each of the nation's 10 presidential libraries faces a different mix of these customers, depending on the age of the library and its location. Opened in August of 1962, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library has recently undergone the process of "reinventing" itself to better serve its customer base. These efforts include revitalized museum programs, expanded scholarly programs, and innovative education programs. The results have been gratifying: increased visibility among the general public throughout Iowa and the Midwest, a renewed interest in the research resources held by the Library, and the discovery of the Library and its programs by new groups of customers.

David E. Alsobrook received his undergraduate degree in Secondary Education from Auburn University in 1968, an M.A. in U.S. history from West Virginia University in 1972, and a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Auburn University in 1983. He taught high school social studies in Mobile, Alabama, and U.S. history at DeKalb College in Clarkston, Georgia. Since 1975, he has served as an Archivist with the Aubum University Archives, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, and the National Archives and Records Administration (Office of Presidential Libraries). During the Carter and Bush administrations, he was assigned to the White House in a liaison role in preparation for the establishment of the Carter and Bush Presidential Libraries. He participated in the movement of Carter and Bush Presidential materials from the White House to Atlanta, Georgia, and College Station, Texas, respectively. Between 1981 and 1991, he was the Supervisory Archivist at the Carter Library. He was appointed Acting Director of the Bush Presidential Materials Project in 1993.

Lynn A. Bassanese is the Public Affairs Specialist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. She started her career at the Roosevelt Library in 1972, working part time as an Archives Aide while attending college. She received her B.A. in history from Marist College.

Raymond H. Geselbracht is the Supervisory Archivist at the Harry S. Truman Library. He has also worked at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Materials Project, He has a doctorate in history from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Mary K. Knill is an Archivist on the staff of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas. She began her archival career in the National Archives career intern development system in Washington, D.C., in 1988 and transfered to the Johnson Library in 1989. She has an M.A. in history from Tulane University.

Clarence F. Lyons, Jr., is Acting Director of the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff in College Park, Maryland. Mr. Lyons has been an Archivist with the National Archives since 1967 and served as a Branch Chief in the Office of National Archives from 1976 until 1988, when he joined the Nixon Project. He has an M.A. in history from the University of Iowa.

Trudy Huskamp Peterson, Deputy Archivist of the United States, was named Acting Archivist in 1993. She also is President of the International Conference of the Round Table on Archives and serves on the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on MIA/ POWs. A Fellow and past President of the Society of American Archivists, Dr. Peterson began her career at the National Archives at the Herbert Hoover Library.

Martin M. Teasley is Assistant Director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, a position he has held since 1979. He began his career with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in 1972 as Librarian with the Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the White House. He then served as a Management Analyst with the NARA Office of Federal Records Centers from 1975-1977, and as Director of the Boston Federal Records Center, 1977-1979. He has an M.A. in International Relations from Boston University and an M. L. in Library Science from Emporia State University.

Timothy Walch is Acting Director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa, where he has worked since August, 1988. Before moving to Iowa, Dr. Walch worked for nine years in various divisions of the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. Educated at the University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University, he is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman: A Documentary History (1992).

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