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House committee, looking for cuts, turns toward presidential libraries
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · March 09, 2011
Presidential libraries went under the microscope last week when an oversight committee considered possible cuts in the $77 million the federal government spends to keep them running — and doing so at remote sites throughout the country, including West Branch.
A House Infrastructure & Oversight Joint Committee hearing asked questions of panelists from the Reagan and Kennedy presidential libraries, the Archivist of the United States, the granddaughter of Franklin Roosevelt, a political science professor and the Lincoln library historian. Tim Walch, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum in West Branch, was in attendance at the Washington D.C. hearing but did not speak.
Committee members seemed to agree on the importance of preserving presidential papers and making them available to the public, but some questioned the need to have them spread throughout the country in 13 taxpayer-funded brick-and-mortar buildings. The committee asked about digitizing presidential papers, how the libraries are funded and the value of staffing several sites over a centralized location.
Panelists noted that there are millions of documents and that the federal government does not provide funding for scanning them and posting them to the Internet. Walch said it has been several years since he heard a cost estimate, but that it once was figured to cost $17 to scan, process, archive and post a single document to the Web. Walch notes that recently the Kennedy library, using three private grants, spent $10 million to digitize 300,000 documents — that works out to $33 each.
“We have 8 million documents,” Walch said. “Even at $1 per document, that’s $8 million. And that does not absolve us of maintaining the originals.”
The federal government requires presidential papers be protected from damage and deterioration, he said.
U.S. Archivist David Ferriero said he wants to publish as much as possible to the Web, but the time and money necessary means it will be a slow process.
“I’m convinced that, as far as children are concerned, it if isn’t online, it doesn’t exist,” he said.
Each of the federally supported presidential libraries was first built with private donations, then given to the government to staff and maintain, while private donations pay for exhibits and special programs. However, the Lincoln library is supported by state funding and private donations. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, who chairs the Roosevelt Institute, said it is important to put presidential papers in, say, a president’s birthplace city, because it puts his thoughts into the context of his upbringing.
“Presidential libraries do not exist to memorialize presidents, but to invest in our future and understanding,” she said.
To that extent, it benefits the nation if the papers are not all in Washington, but spread throughout the country, Walch said, saying many who visit West Branch make a “pilgrimage” to see what the 31st president wrote.
“They do like to see the context, the home,” he said.
Ferriero added that removing presidential libraries would have a negative impact on the cities that house them, as visitors tend to spend an average of $100 to $200 per person during their stay.
After the two-hour hearing, which was broadcast by C-SPAN 3, House representatives, panelists and others mingled at an informal gathering that afternoon, and Walch returned with the belief that the committee found little benefit to trying to find cuts in presidential library spending.
“The mark-up on (the National Archives and Records Administration) for next year is flat,” he said. “We’re not going to see great growth, but I don’t think (cuts) will have any substantive impact on the Hoover library or others.”
Committee Co-chair Rep. John Mica, R-Florida, visited the Hoover library in August, spending half a day with Walch while touring the site.
“He was very impressed with our layout, the structure of the site, the size of our budget and the staff,” Walch said. “It is a scale and enterprise that he can support.”
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