LISNews: Librarian News

While President Bush's advisers were taking offers on an ideal spot for his library and museum, they probably should have paid more attention to the virtual real-estate market. Officials finally settled on Southern Methodist University in Dallas to house the $250 million complex.

But online, some of the very best addresses are gone — snapped up for a mere fistful of dollars by squatters who have no connection to the library yet hope to make fun of the president, protect him or simply cash in on his name.

Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.
That archivists' decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.

While researching a book on presidential libraries in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., Benjamin Hufbauer came across a Chicago Tribune editorial cartoon from December 1938 that crystallizes the problem with presidential libraries. The cartoon shows FDR dressed as Santa leaving a present in his own stocking, with a card that says: "Hyde Park Memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt. To be enlarged by public subscription and forever maintained at government expense. To be grander than Mt. Vernon and Monticello."

Some Southern Methodist University professors say they are relieved a partisan policy institute won't be identified as part of the school but remain concerned the relationship with the institute will harm the campus.

Ever since SMU became the lone finalist for the library 14 months ago, debate among professors has focused not on the library or museum, but rather the related institute "inspired by the principles of George W. Bush's administration," as described by a library search committee.