LISNews: Librarian News

The LA Times Takes A Look At The Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda, which they say, has long been the most kicked-around of presidential libraries, and nothing invited more ridicule than the dim, narrow room purporting to describe the scandal that drove its namesake from office. In late March, however, workers roped off the Watergate gallery and methodically began to destroy it. Armed with hammers, a crowbar, a screw gun and a Sawzall, they yanked big display cabinets out of the floor, sliced through tough fiberboard panels, detached more than 100 fluorescent lighting tubes and removed the long strips of plexiglass that had sandwiched text transparencies.

News From Texas Planning for the George W. Bush Presidential Library at SMU has taken another step forward with at least three nationally prominent firms competing to design it – and each can play up architectural ties to the president.

From the Texas Rangers' park in Arlington to a memorial in Mr. Bush's home state to an engineering building at his alma mater, the firms are now engaged in a high-stakes contest to gain support from a selection panel that has said the winning design must incorporate the "spirit" of the Bush presidency.

A recent move by a Ventura County commission may mean the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum can officially call this town home.
Although the library's address says Simi Valley, it is actually in unincorporated Ventura County just outside the city limits. Last week, the Ventura County Local Agency Formation Commission took the first step toward annexing the land by putting the library officially into the city's sphere of influence.

Some priceless mementoes of our sixteenth president, including one of only three extant stovepipe hats, will now be housed in his Library and Museum in Springfield IL, thanks to a large acquisition from private donor Louise Taper of Beverly Hills,California. Taper began her fascination with Lincoln as a young mother upon reading Irving Stone's 'Love Is Eternal' (reference this article from American Heritage Magazine.)

In response to the news of the acquisition from the State Journal-Register, one reader (Lincoln Buff) comments "Taper's "addiction" to collecting all things Lincoln began when, as a young person working for a manuscript company, she took her pay in Lincoln documents and the collection had its start. Its exponential growth through her persistence is phenomenal. Thank you, Louise, for your foresight and diligence in bringing these items together. Thanks to both you and the ALPLM for keeping the collection together and bringing it home before the 2009 bicentennial of Lincoln's birth."