What do you call a library that doesn't have any books to check out? 

ATLANTA, GA (Aug. 2) - "Surprisingly, they are some of the most important and most unique libraries in the country," Dr. Jay Hakes explained. "They are Presidential Libraries."

   Dr. Hakes is the Director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, one of eleven Presidential Libraries operated by the National Archives and Records Administration and the only Presidential Library in the Southeast.

   "The Carter Library has more than 27 million pages of documents, 1 million feet of film, 600,000 photographs, 2500 hours of audiotape and 1250 hours of videotape," according to Dr. Hakes, "but not a single book that can be checked out."

   That's because Presidential Libraries are not libraries in the traditional sense. They are a combination of a Presidential Museum, which exhibits historic artifacts from a President's life, career and administration and an archive for preserving and presenting the papers, records and other historical materials that President. 

   "The basic difference between libraries and archives," Carter Library archivist James Yancey explained, "is that every library contains basically the same thing, while each archive is unique in the material that it holds."

   President Franklin Roosevelt gets the credit for starting the Presidential Library system. In 1939, he donated his personal and Presidential papers to the Federal Government and pledged part of his estate at Hyde Park for the construction of a library and museum. But Roosevelt is also responsible for the confusion that almost every week brings students to the library doors expecting something far different.

   "Roosevelt came from an era and a social class where they had libraries in their homes. He had one in his home and that's where he kept his records," said Carter Library archivist Dave Stanhope. "When Roosevelt decided he would start to give this thing over, he said I will give my library over to the government, literally." And the name "library" stuck.

   After President Harry Truman decided to build a library to house his own Presidential papers, Congress decided to formalize the process. In 1955, Congress passed the Presidential Libraries Act, establishing a system of privately created and federally maintained Presidential Libraries. Because of a precedent going back to George Washington, Presidents owned the documents created during their Administration. So Congress encouraged each President to donate their papers to the Federal Government to ensure the materials were preserved and made available to the public.

   President Jimmy Carter was the last President to own his Presidential papers. Following the Nixon-Watergate scandal, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act of 1978. It established that Presidential records that document the constitutional, statutory and ceremonial duties of the President are the property of the Federal Government. When a President leaves office, the Archivist of the United States takes custody of the records and a President's library become the repository for those records.

   Most people are familiar with the Presidential museums which present President's life and Administration through exhibits of historic items; fewer understand the Presidential library.

   "The Presidential libraries are not just about ribbon-cuttings and souvenirs and entertainment, but a vital part of citizens maintaining control of their political existence," according to archivist Albert Nason. Carter Library Deputy Director Robert Bohanan calls it 'history in the raw.' "You cannot write history without having the original documentation, "Bohanan explained. "Otherwise, you're just making stuff up."

   The Presidential documents help historians understand what a President knew, when he knew it and how he responded. "And what's invaluable about Carter's collection," archivist Yancey said, "is that Carter constantly wrote notes about how he felt, what he thought. He constantly wrote notes, so the notes are a valuable personal insight to what he was thinking about during the whole period."

   Before the Presidential materials can be made available to the public, they must be 'processed.' That means going through all the documents, cataloguing them and arranging them in the sequence in which they were originally kept, because that tells researchers something about the way the files were used.
In addition, each document is reviewed for its security classification level. 
Archivist James Yancey processes some of the most sensitive material at the Carter Library. "When I look at a document," Yancey said, "the first thing I do is see who created it, what the security classification is and then, look at the meat of the document and see what its saying." Confidential material is considered to do damage to the country if made public; secret material would do serious damage and top secret would do grave damage. According to Yancey, a vast majority of these documents are 'time-classified'. As time passes, the security classification is lowered and is eventually open to the public.

   For Yancey, examining documents which few can see has its drawbacks. "It's not as exhilarating as you may think, because you know, you can't talk about it," he said. "There are only two of three people you can talk about it with so, to me, probably, the thrill is gone."

   But for scholars and researchers, there is nothing quite like holding declassified historic documents in their hands. "I have heard historians talk about the tactile pleasure in doing research and actually touching these original documents," Bohanan said. "It's something psychological in historians and it's the reason most archivists are historians."

   The research room at the Carter Library opened in 1987 and has been providing a window into the Carter Administration ever since. "We have what we call a clean research room policy," Bohanan explained. "You don't take anything into the room, except possibly a laptop computer to take notes. We give you paper; we give you stuff to write with. That way we know you're not going to leave with anything."

   While the room is officially open to anyone, it is primarily used by scholars working on books or articles.

   High school and lower division college students working on a term paper about some aspect of the Carter Administration are normally given a bibliography of books that will have the material they need.

   Some of the most frequent requests for material from the Library are for photographs and films. "They are probably far more used than any of the other records here, even though the importance of understanding our nation comes out in the policy and paper records," according to audio-visual archivist Dave Stanhope. He believes the pictures are important because "they capture the essence of an administration and they lend a humanness or humanity to the historic documents."

   Some photo requests have more to do with humor than history. Among the most requested is a photo of President Carter and the 'killer rabbit.' Dave Stanhope describes it this way. "The killer rabbit is the story of when President Carter literally had to shoo away a rabbit from his boat. The rabbit had been chased into the pond by a dog and as it swam across the pond, it came to his boat and he shooed t away. Months later, Press Secretary Powell was reminiscing about the story with a White House reporter. He went vital part of citizens maintaining out and wrote the story about Carter's run-in with a 'killer rabbit.' Everybody in the Washington beat took this story and just went to town with it, especially after it was learned there was a photo of it. Still to this day, it is one of our most highly ordered, most requested images-President Carter and the killer rabbit."

   Document archivists also receive memorable requests. Albert Nason recalls an email earlier this summer in which a Japanese linguistics professor asked what President Carter meant when he referred to 'Montezuma's Revenge' during a 1979 speech in Mexico. Nason tactfully explained that the phrase is American slang for dysentery and told the professor that Carter probably meant it 'as something of a joke.'

   The professor replied that now his students will surely be motivated to study more about American English and its cultural background.

   Library archivists point out that it is not their role to protect or glorify the President. "We look at our job professionally in providing these materials to the American people, not because we have any kind of partisan ideals," Dave Stanhope said. "We are the only nation that makes their chief executive's records available to the public. No other nation really does that. No other nation ever has. I think as Americans and I think as archivists, we're very proud of that."

   What do you call a library that doesn't have any books to check out? The place where history is preserved for all to see.