The library and the museum are in a low stone building set back from the reconstructed village, accessible yet surprisingly in no way insistent or obtrusively out of character. Since highway signs direct one only to "The Hoover Library," the village at the Historic Site comes as a happy dividend and adds a new dimension to the museum aspect of a presidential facility.

Because presidential library/museums are almost always referred to just as "libraries," many visitors are confused. At the Truman Library, for instance, although one building houses both facilities, visitors must be enterprising even to find the library, which is not open to the public in any case. Still, they do look--but usually just to see "those people" who work with books and papers. "The tourists don't want to do research," was the comment of a former member of the museum staff, "they just really want to see other people doing it."

It was only as a member of the Harvard Square Development Task Force that I was given permission to see the archival and research sections of the Harry S. Truman Library. There I saw attractive well-equipped offices for the staff. (The private office of ex-President Truman is sealed while his estate is being probated.) The reading room for visiting scholars is large and comfortable. A big, specially-equipped area on two floors is filled with stacks for the library's estimated eight million papers.

Providing for cars and other motor vehicles is obviously an important consideration at each of the presidential facilities I visited. The original provisions have just as obviously proved inadequate. Today, there are three public parking lots at the Truman Library--two of them added since the library opened. There are three lots for the Hoover Historic Site. The two at the Eisenhower Center are clearly over-taxed; a third lot for 300 cars is currently under construction. Each of the three library/museums has a special area designated for what the sign at the Truman Library calls "Buses, Trucks, Campers, Trailers, Motor-cycles." A guard told me, "even one of these things can cause real trouble in a regular lot." Elaborate homes-on-wheels, a substantial percentage carrying or towing cars, beach buggies, bicycles, motorcycles, or boats--are regularly among the vehicles Americans travel in. And travel to the libraries is certainly something Americans do. The day I was at the Truman Library there were cars--or whatever!--from 29 states; at the Eisenhower Center, from 21 states.

There is something for everyone in the programs and displays at presidential museums. As an introduction to the Truman museum, a documentary movie called, "For All the People," is shown in the 251 seat auditorium. It describes the facility as "a storehouse for the imagination...with various incongruous elements of history from which our lives are built." Museum objects include documents, photographs, portraits, cartoons, murals, uniforms, flags, weapons, table services, Bibles, furniture, cars, coins, ship models, and gifts to the Trumans from all over the world. Incongruous indeed! A visitor can hardly fail to find at least one link to his own experience.

While the museums are obviously built to honor particular men who have been presidents of the United States, the overall impression is neither biographical nor chronological. In many instances the idea of the presidency is actually used only as a springboard to exhibit themes of possible intrinsic interest, but certainly with only marginal relevance to the president in question. At the Hoover Museum one of the exhibits displays K'ang Hsi and Ming porcelains collected by Mrs. Hoover between 1899 and 1901 when Hoover, an engineer, (with what a government brochure calls "an international reputation as a `doctor of sick mines'") worked in China. At Independence, Truman's Masonic memorabilia are displayed with pictures of 14 other presidents who have been Masons. In the Eisenhower Museum the large collection of World War II weaponry and a sample of moon rock from the Apollo 12 mission are focal displays. In all of the museums, where trained specialists continually up-date and replace exhibits, there is a growing emphasis on an interpretative presentation of material rather than the mere display of objects. In the Truman museum an exciting exhibit--The Whistlestop Campaign of 1948--is an example of this new trend.

Presidential library/museums are built originally with private funds. They are then turned over to the General Services Administration, a federal agency mandated to maintain and operate them. My impression was that the GSA puts a high priority on visitor convenience and good will. The consistently solicitous attitude of employees was striking. One security guard explained, "The boss always reminds us--be as nice as you can to everyone--they're usually cranky from traveling." Visitor convenience is not just a matter of attitude, however. It is significantly a matter of physical plant.

Since being turned over to the government for operation, each of these three library/museums has increased its land area, its acquisitions, and the size of its physical facilities. This pattern of growth and change is dramatically apparent at the Eisenhower Center. The museum has doubled from its original size. Its collection of objects and artifacts increased from 5000 to 22,000 items. Completely new exhibits were installed between 1969 and 1971 and plans made to renew them on a rotating basis each year. Obsolecence never diminishes the appeal of a presidential museum; out-dated exhibits can-- and are--replaced to illustrate a seemingly limitless range of subjects. The new visitors reception center will have an auditorium for 300 people. There is already an auditorium in the library building where a movie "A Place in History" is shown eight times a day. Three hundred new parking places are being provided. To make room for these new additions, the Lincoln School building and two acres of land were purchased from the city by the GSA.

Growth is built into the very fabric of a presidential museum; guaranteed long-term public financing, favored access to new display materials, and bureaucratic responsiveness to the public forestall any loss of momentum and appeal. Associated with this primary growth is the continuing secondary development pattern on the periphery of the sites themselves. This commercial activity is an inevitable response to visitors' needs and public taste.

And how many people come to these museums and libraries? In any single year, scholars using a presidential library are counted by the hundreds; tourists visiting an associated presidential museum are counted by the hundreds of thousands. The library alone has relatively little impact on the surrounding community. But what would be the effect on an already congested area of a library and museum?

Martha S. Lawrence is the Neighborhood Ten representative on the Harvard Square Development Task Force.