LITTLE ROCK — The number of visitors each year to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library has slipped only slightly in the library’s first five years, surpassing everyone’s expectations, its top administrator says.
“We’re at about 300,000 (visitors per year) for the last two years,” said Terri Garner, director of the Clinton Library. “The first year we had half a million. Normally in the presidential library system, at about year three and four you start really falling off, even sometimes below 200,000. We are the only one that has maintained at that high of a level into the fifth year.”
Other presidential libraries have boosted declining visitor numbers by adding big attractions, such as the Reagan Library’s addition of a former Air Force One jet in 2005, but the Clinton Library — marking the fifth anniversary of its opening this week — has remained a strong draw without any major changes.
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The $165 million library, a part of the National Archives, contains 90,000 artifacts, 80 million pages of archived documents and 18 million archived e-mails. It features permanent exhibits such as a replica of the Oval Office and temporary exhibits such as the current “Jewels to Jelly Beans,” a collection of more than 200 artifacts from presidential vaults.
Read the full article by John Lyon in the November 16, 2009 edition of the Times Record.
