LISNews: Librarian News

From the New York Times:

More than four years after leaving office, former President George W. Bush has a question for America: So what would you have done?

In a new brick-and-limestone museum, visitors to an interactive theater will be presented with the stark choices that confronted the nation’s 43rd president: invade Iraq or leave Saddam Hussein in power? Deploy federal troops after Hurricane Katrina or rely on local forces? Bail out Wall Street or let the banks fail?

Slide show here.

OK, included "Laura Bush" as one of the topics, can we now please delete that one Blake?

Presidential libraries serve as official cultural repositories for the legacies of their namesake commanders in chief. More than 200 years after his death, it's hard to believe that the country's first president, George Washington, still lacks a library devoted to his remarkable life.

Mount Vernon, the Virginia home of Washington, has spent the last several years raising $100 million to construct an official library on its scenic grounds. Organizers announced on Friday — just in time for Presidents Day weekend -- an opening date of Sept. 27.

Full article

I'd Rather Go To Hawaii.
“I want to raise the alarm because I think a presidential museum will inevitably become our university’s highest-profile institution on a national basis,” Political Science Professor Charles Lipson said. “It will not be a disinterested, scholarly institution. It will be advancing a political agenda, funded by President Obama’s political allies, including foreign donors who cannot give money to his presidential campaigns.”

The University of Hawaii has waged a more public campaign to land Obama’s library. The state’s legislature passed a resolution encouraging Obama to put the library in the tropical paradise he called home for most of his first 18 years. Even the Chamber of Commerce is on board, said University of Hawaii Professor Robert Perkinson: “Obama is quite a beloved figure in Hawaii.”

Hundreds of goats help clear brush at Reagan Library

Visitors to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley will have an opportunity in the next few weeks to see hundreds of four-legged helpers of the Ventura County Fire Department doing their part to reduce the risk of wildfires.

About 900 goats are in the fields around the library, helping eat the shrubs that could be fuel for fires.