Presidential libraries collect papers, records, and other items associated with a former United States president. Many people visit a presidential library to study its books, newspapers, films, photographs, sound and video recordings, and other documents. A presidential library also includes a museum with exhibits that tell the story of the life and career of the president.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) administers 13 presidential libraries. They are the George Bush Library and Museum in College Station, Texas; the George W. Bush Library and Museum in Dallas; the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta; the William J. Clinton Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas; the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum in Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, Michigan; the Herbert Hoover Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin; the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston; the Richard Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California; the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California; the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York; and the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri.
Other presidential libraries and museums are not managed by NARA. For example, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, a state government agency, administers the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio, is a private, nonprofit institution that includes a library and museum. The Forbes Library, a public library in Northampton, Massachusetts, houses the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum. The William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum in Canton, Ohio, and the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, Virginia, are both private, nonprofit institutions.
A groundbreaking ceremony took place in 2021 for the Obama Presidential Center. The center is being built on parkland on Chicago’s South Side near the University of Chicago campus, where Barack Obama once taught. It will feature a museum, a branch of the Chicago Public Library, and other facilities. Planning for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, on a site in Medora, North Dakota, was underway in the 2020’s.
