Tag Archives: special libraries

The Newberry Library: building a great library from nothing

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The Newberry Library in Chicago is one of the world’s great research libraries. Most other libraries have started with a core collection, or at least a plan for developing one. The Newberry Library, founded in 1887, started with a codicil in the will of Walter L. Newberry, who died in 1868. There never would have been a library if either of his daughters had borne children. Since they did not, Newberry bequeathed his money to found a public library. His private book collection, which should have formed its nucleus, burned in the Chicago Fire of 1871. How was anyone supposed to create a library with no books, little instruction, and a big pile of money?

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John F. Kennedy Library & Museum

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As part of the 50th anniversary remembrance of the assassination of President Kennedy, it seems good to pay particular attention to the JFK Library. Like all modern presidential libraries, it was constructed with private funds and then maintained and operated by the National Archives and Records Administration. Franklin D. Roosevelt established the first one. The Presidential Libraries Act of 1955 encouraged subsequent Presidents to do the same, even though at the time the President’s papers were still considered private property. And so on September 20, 1961, less than a year into his administration, Kennedy began consultation with the Archivist of the United States to begin plans for his own library. He planned to establish it, following Roosevelt’s model, near Harvard University. A month before his final trip to Dallas, he selected the site.

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Presidential Libraries of the United States

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Now that the George W. Bush Library and Museum has opened, every former President from Herbert Hoover onward has a presidential library established in his name. For all the snarky humor about whether the new Bush library has anything but picture books, a presidential library isn’t a library in the normal sense of the term. Whatever books it has comprise only an insignificant part of its holdings. (President Bush has written a book, so his library certainly includes that one!) Although they are called presidential libraries, they are more museum and archive than library. The Office of Presidential Libraries of the National Archives and Records Administration now oversees 13 presidential libraries.

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