1. Abrar Alkusaimi (August 2015) [1]
Presidential Libraries and Museums: Creating New Frontiers
In my first year of my graduate program in library and information science at Dominican
University, I took a general course in Cataloging and a more specified course in Cataloging
Objects. I applied to the Washington Center’s Federal Diversity Internship to gain experience in
the public service sector, hopefully doing something in my field of interest. Working in the
Presidential Libraries section of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
sparked my interest in the different organizational methods for the different types of information
mediums.
The Clinton Library sits in a space of time where information mediums including:
textual, audio, visual, and artifacts. I had the honor to work with these specific mediums with
expert staff throughout my internship at the Clinton Presidential Library.
Presidential libraries are a fairly new section of NARA. As a new section, there are
different challenges and opportunities that are very unique for each section. Presidential libraries
do not fit the usual sense of a library definition. When compared to a public library, a
presidential library is more of government depository, museum, and a research center. Each
presidential library includes a museum and an archives section. Just as no two Presidents are the
same, no two presidential libraries are the same. The libraries include a unique partnership with
presidential foundations that help support the original building expenses and sometimes do
fundraising for the library.
The museum section of the presidential libraries started long before their establishment.
The concern started with United States dignitaries and representatives accepting gifts from
foreign states. This was solved through the adoption of a law that covered gifts presented to the
First Family and other officials. The Constitutional Convention on August 23, 1787 based on
Charles Pinckney’s proposal stated that,
“No person holding any office of profit or trust under the United
States, shall without consent of the Legislature, accept of any
present emolument, office or title of any kind whatever, from any
King, Prince or Foreign State.”
This law was first applicable to Unites States diplomats and representatives abroad and
evolved to include the First Family. The current laws cover not only objects but papers that were

2. Abrar Alkusaimi (August 2015) [2]
part of the specific President’s administration. The Franklin D. Roosevelt library is the first to
start the trend of including documents associated with a specific administration. The documents
collection was gained through donations and gifts by presidents who were leaving office. Those
records were kept for historical perspective and insight. This precedence, however, was changed
with the Nixon presidency where congress interfered to specify what types of files the president
had to turn over to the Federal Government. The Presidential Recordings and Materials
Preservation Act of 1974, included provisions that stated the Federal Government could retain
custody of all Presidential material. Presidents since then have had the opportunity to amend the
law by executive order to specify what constitutes a personal file or a presidential record.
Both the archives and museum systems have an intricate set of rules and regulations that
govern the way items and documents are cataloged and stored. The system can track the
movement and location of items and documents through electronic databases. They both have
similar terms and start at the White House Office of Records (WHORM). However, each section
has its unique cataloging database and challenges. The Clinton Presidential Library includes an
especially unique collection of documents and artifacts because the Clinton administration was
during a time where the information landscape was changing. For example, the first email
database.
The Archives includes over 82 million pages, two million photographs, 12 thousand
video tapes, and continues to grow. The collection includes an online collection of emails and
different mediums holding audio and visual material. The museum section houses more than 90
thousand artifacts. It is a living historical record collection that evolves with the introduction of
new ways of preservation and new use for the items in the collection. The archival staff is
continuously completing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Systematic Processing
projects on the material to make access to the information easier for researchers and the public.
The museum staff is responsible for conserving, auditing, cataloging and preserving the items
while helping put educational programming and public programs.
The archival and museum staff is creating new ways to preserve records and information
in the different mediums. Cataloging standards are adopted into the museum section in the
context of a library, which could bring new standards into the library science field as a whole.
The archival staff is leading the way into digitization techniques and standards for presidential
libraries and the National Archives as a whole. With the announcement of the Obama

3. Abrar Alkusaimi (August 2015) [3]
Presidential Library opening in Chicago, presidential libraries seem to be the new frontier for
new practices in archival and museum practices in the United States and record management
field.