Transcripts For CSPAN3 Caretakers Of Americas Treasures 20161226

Responsible for conserving the nations history and treasures, and my opening question is to our host for this conversation, carla hayden, who is the brand new 14th librarian of congress, just starting her job in the fall of 2016. Why did you take this job . Let me see how you finish this sentence. I took that job because i want to . Open this wonderful Treasure Chest so as many people as possible. It has, in the room that were in now, has six stratovarious violins and original scores from beethov beethoven, haydn, no relation, and there are so many things here, and thats why i took the job. David farrio youve been at this a bit longer. You are the tenth archivist of the United States, started the job in 2009. Do you remember where you said yes . I said no twice when i got the first calls but it and it took someone from the Transition Team to come to new york to talk to me about what this administration was looking for in the new archivist and i said yes because of the the opportunity to participate in an administration that was serious about open government and transparency, and thought that the National Archives had a role to play in that theme. Dr. Davis, you came from Cornell University to the smithsonian, a sprawling really set of responsibilities. Why did you say yes to such a very different gig . Well, part of it goes back to my dad, who was a naturalized citizen and immigrant from russia, and we were a patriotic family and we were a little corny in this regard and he said if you ever have a chance to do something for the country, it would be nice if you would do it and it felt like i could participate in some small way in preserving some of the nations memories and history, telling the story of it to america, and i also knew that libraries and museums are often among the most trusted kinds of institutions in the United States, at a time when not every institution is trusted, and i thought it would be terrific to be able to work in that sector. I wish the camera had been rolling for the conversation when you all sat down, because clearly theres a rapport among the three of us. How often do you get together like this . Ive only been here a couple of months, but ive reached out to these two gentlemen and we are going to be doing more of this type of not just discussion about what were doing, but what we could do together. So this is about the third time in that short period of time that weve had a chance to say hey were going to work together. Both david and carla have been forces for bringing us together and beyond us, a much large every part of the Cultural Community in washington and its quite a community. It goes from the large institutions you see here to smaller ones that are nonetheless just jewels. Theyve drawn me in and others and i think youre going to see more of this kind of arms around each other sort of thing. Well thank you for doing it with the cspan audience today. We have a lot of topics that i have on my pad here to cover but id ask each of you, if you could give us a very capsulized history of your institution, how it first got started and yours is the oldest. The oldest, 1800, and it was, started to inform congress and it actually started with a small collection of books in the capital, housed in the capital, so the building, the Jefferson Building that were in is actually a building that was built and opened in 1897, and thomas jefferson, famously after a fire in the capital, gave his collection of really of Monumental Library at that time for congress, and its grown over time to one of the largest libraries in the world. So that was your beginnings. What is your set of responsibilities today. How large has the library of congress grown . The library of congress has 162 million items and those items include everything from the sheet music i mentioned to Abraham Lincolns life mask, 32 million books, all types of things, and it also operates the u. S. Copyright system, and a lot of the materials that come and have built the National Library are from that process. It also has the special forces i like to call them, for congress. Its still the reference arm for congress. The smithsonian came along next. How did it get started . Well, a chemist in britain named james smithson, who never set foot in north america, somehow was enamored of the american experiment in the early 19th century, and so he decided to give his, to bequest his whole worth about a half Million Dollars in those days to the United States, and after some deliberation, the United States decided to accept it, and set up something and mr. Smithson, in his bequest wrote he wanted the institution to be oriented toward what he called the increase and defusion of knowledge. Thats what the smithsonian has turned out to be. Right now there are 19 museums and galleries, the national zoo, always a favorite, Nine Research centers, 215 affiliate museums around the United States, traveling exhibition service, and a lot of other things. Our collection is 156 million objects, including 2 million books and 154 million other things that range from biological specimens to the ruby slippers to the hope diamond and many other things and i want to put another plug in for the library of congress. Not only were all those things mentioned but the instrument collection, Musical Instrument collection is a great interest of mine is fabulous here. When i first came, carlas predecessor gave me a tour of some of those objects in this very room, and it was to die for. It was really something. The fluke election. Yep, they even let me play one in an inadequate fashion. Oh my goodness. David ferrior, youre the new kid on the block but over 75 years old, how did the National Archives come about . It wasnt until the Franklin Rooseve Roosevelt Administration the archives was created in 1934. Im convinced it was roosevelts personal passion for records that it happened. He described it in his papers as his baby, so he spent a lot of time selecting the first archivist, robert connor, faculty member in history at chapel hill and creating the, what would be the process for managing the records of the government, and thats what the mission has been since the very beginning. The creation of the record schedules for each of the 275 executive Branch Agencies managing the temporary courtesy storage of the records of congress, and the supreme court, building a staff, and creating the management of government records, which looks pretty easy from this perspective, when he was first starting, but he had similar problems with the agencies being reluctant to give up their records, so the president having to kind of lay down the law about this is the way were going to do business. So its at this point a collection of 13 billion pieces of paper, 43 million photographs, miles and miles of film and video, and the fastest part of the collection, Fastest Growing part of the collection is electronic records, about 5 terrabytes of electronic records so far in our custody. Is everything the government produced, is it all saved . Not everything, no. There are two sets of laws that govern our work, the president ial records act and the federal records act. The federal records act governs the records of the executive branch and every agency has a records manager. They create record schedules working with my staff to identify the kind of records, how long they need to be retained in the agency for business or legal purposes, and just the 2 to 3 of those that are historic or legal value that need to be kept forever, they get transferred to us, thats federal side. On the president ial record side, everything, everything thats created in the white house is record. So we should also explain that that means that the president ial Library System reports 13 president ial libraries are part of National Archives also. Im going to come back to the president ial libraries in a bit but to plunge into current events, we have an incoming president who tweets. Thats right. So will you be gathering all of his tweets and at what point, does that start on january 20th . It starts when, right after the inaugural ceremony it starts, as soon as he is sworn in, the recordkeeping starts. And tweets wont be new to the National Archives. We have been collecting, this president tweets also so weve been collecting his tweets so there are tweets now coming from the white house. Yes, very different kinds of tweets though, between the two administrations, so it will be interesting for future generations of researchers. This is another round robin question, but i dont want to spend too much time in the weeds. The organization and structure governed is really interesting. You were appointed by the president and went through confirmation process. Yes. Who is your boss and how long is your term . The congress. Actually, its a tenyear term, and the librarian of congress is the only staff member employee of the library of congress that is a president ial appointment. The other people who work, 3,200 people who work at the library are government employees, federal employees, and so its not an appointment process, so that when i mentioned congress, the appropriations committees that have oversight and quite a bit of interaction with congress. Is there still a joint committee . Its joint committee and both houses. Are they active and involved . Theyre active and whats been very heartening in working with congress is to realize and i think both of my colleagues can share this, the interest of most of the legislators in history, and you could, youre both nodding, because youve noticed that, and it really was striking during my confirmation process, visiting the different offices, and how many things were either on loan or how much the legislators knew about history, and wanted to really cement their place in history, too, and were very aware of it. So what is your operating budget and how much of that is federally subsidized . Just about all of it, 632 million, and but you do accept private donations as well . And im looking at my colleagues especially smithsonian has done a wonderful job of being able to work with patriotic philanthropy and so the library has been relatively new to that, and starting accepting that. The fact that were in this room with the gift of ms. Coolidge, mrs. Coolidge with the flutes and the stratovarious instruments is part of that. Is that first Lady Coolidge that gave this . No. No relation. What about the archivist, to whom do you report . To the president. And what is your governance, do you have a governing body that you report to in any sense of the way . We have oversight committees both in the house and the senate th , but our main communication is with the white house. What is your operating budget and is it all federally funded . Its about 450 million and each of the president ial libraries as well as the flagship National Archives have private foundations that supplement that. Dr. Skorton your governance structure is interesting. The board of regents, the chief justice, the Vice President and also the leaders of Congress Search on it. How did that come about . Youre stealing all of my thunder. Sorry. Thats okay. It is an interesting governmental center. 9 of the 17 of private citizens, District Of Columbia can have two and eight public servants, six sitting members of congress, not necessarily leaders but three from the senate, three from the house, and the Vice President , as you said, and the chancellor of the smithsonian is the chief justice, and i report to that board. Im not a political appointee. Im not a federal employee. The smithsonian is something called a trust instrumentality. The budget is 1. 4 billion. We have 6,300 employees, about twothirds roughly are federal employees, and about onethird are not, and then we have about 6,000 volunteers on site, and you see them when you come to the museums. You see them when you come here to the library as well and the archives, and then we have another 6,000 or so digital volunteers who help us with things from afar. And thats also the case i know with the archives, im not sure about the library so its very interesting, the governance process and it works and works well, and each entity has, each Museum Research center has an Advisory Board which is delegated certain aspects of the functioning, but the actual governance is done by this 17person board of regents its called. Are they active . Very active. They meet formally four times a year, and then we have an executive committee, a subset of the board that we meet by telephone every month, so theyre quite active. Were talking about funding. How important has private philanthropy been to what you want to get done particularly in the new age, and the digital age . Before you answer, i have to make one provision, because im staring at and shes staring at me, miss gladys widdall, who he was the donor. Let the record show, yes. Shes looking and i think even the candles of flickering a little bit. There she is, mrs. Coolidge gave theauditorium that the straovariouses are being played and i may be remiss this is patriotic, but the lights did flicker a little bit. David, you understand why i had to do that. I think that the private Public Partnership has been instrumental in helping us move forward. There are certain things that the government cant fund, cant afford to fund, and there are lots of people who are, as carla mentioned, love history, and want to support these institutions. So we have something for everyone. Preservation, digitization, support of user education, exhibitions, all those kinds of things are wonderful opportunities for collaboration. Were also a Public Private partnership. The smithsonians budgets about 1. 4 billion, and roughly 62 comes from federal appropriations, and then the rest comes from a combination of retail, the shops, online shopping, imax theaters, cafes, magazine and some other things and philanthropy, and weve been very, very fortunate over a period of time especially recently in getting very, very generous philanthropy. Were in the middle of a comprehensive campaign. Weve already pasted the 1. 5 billion mark and as you mention i come from higher education. Thats a lot of philanthropy for an entity that doesnt have a m alumni in the usual sense nor to my knowledge a football team. Im still learning every day but sofaras i know, no football team. As far as donors youd be loath to single out one but i want to. You and i worked on an interview together at the archives with david rubenstein, the Carlisle Group and it is unusual in a generation to have a private philanthropist with pockets as deep as his has been for national treasures. Can you talk about the role that hes had and also what kind of editorial control does one seek when you ghive that kind of mony or do you still have independence putting that work together. Thats the thing with david, theres no pressure on you. He doesnt direct how the resources are used, at least in our work together. He is a passionate history collector of original documents, and unlike lots of collectors, he wants his collection in the public. He wants to place them in places where people are going to see them and appreciate them, so hes been very generous to the National Archives. His, he bought ross perots copy of the 1297 magna carta, and just months before i arrived on the scene, he was the first person to welcome me to washington, his office is close by. He graduated from duke university, where i was the librarian, so he had checked with the president there to check me out and make sure that i was a credible person to be taken care of his magna carta, and hes been incredibly supportive ever since. But never pressure in terms of how we display or making decisions for us. What has a single donor like that meant to the smithsonian . Im going to back up a bit and talk more about the general case. I think my colleagues would agree with me, flphilanthropic fund raise something a sort of dance. You bring someone with capacity, doesnt have to be huge capacity but a capacity and a passion for something or other and then you try to match that up with some priority that the institution has and when those things come together its a beautiful dance. One of the things about david rubent rubenstein hes very interested in history, not only collecting Historical Documents but hes a voracious reader of history. He knows a lot of things and as you may know, im sure you do know, when you see him do an interview he uses no notes, he just somehow manages to take it from memory, so hes truly an intellectual person. Hes been a terrific partner for us as well because not only the generosity which was the obvious point but also because he wants to do what the institution finds to be a high priority and thats been without a doubt what hes done, and to give him credit far beyond the three of us sitting here, he does the same thing for the American People through a wide variety of monuments and memorials, washingtonians know and i hope other people know that he helped to repair the Washington Monument after the earthquake a few years ago and now hes helping to replace the elevator. Replace the elevator in the Washington Monument, doing something with the Lincoln Memorial so he really truly wants to share his passion, i would say, as well as his wealth, through these acquisitions with the American People. He wants to grow readers. He is passionate, you mention hes a voracious reader. He credits the library that i just left, the annie Pratt Free Library in baltimore, he grew up there and he credits that library with encouraging his love of reading. He started out checking out books and there was a limit, like 12 books a week, and hed finish in one day, and have to wait for a week, and he sponsors the National Book festival, and this year he was there looking at people from all walks of life, enjoying meeting authors. He also sponsors literacy awards for notforprofit organizations that are encouraging young people to learn to read and their parents, so he really believes in the power of knowledge and literacy and that is what has been just wonderful for me. Has a deep sense of responsibility for funding these institutions and its not just his own personal feeling about this, but he influences others around him. He recently hosted a meeting of the signers of the giving pledge and the three of us had an opportunity to present our institutions to these members. Is private philanthropy a uniquely american concept or do institutions like the ones you run in other countries seek private donors as well . Unique is a word you want to use very sparingly and it may not be slightly unique but it certainly is very much more part of the American History and american ethos than anywhere else i visited, although there are generous people everywhere and its been a big part of america, and i can say, with authority, that the smithsonian would not be what it is without that Public Private partnership although congress has been enormously generous with us, enormously generous through thin and thin and through administrations that have been democrat, president s, republican president s and two whigs. Weve had very generous support, but without the edge of excellence that we can get from philanthropy, we just wouldnt be able to do the things that we do. Each of you is charged with conserving our nations legacy, and our history. Are the lines of demarkation clearly drawn or do you ever compete with one another as institutions for things that youd like to conserve . I have enough in my custody now that i wouldnt be fighting with these two colleagues for more of the content. I think theres lots of territory for us, the three of us to be working together on the preservation of what we have. We all have the similar kinds of materials in terms of formats, and we all have serious preservation needs, and we have very talented staff working for each of us in preservation units so we have some really i think real opportunities for collaborative work on that front. And actually, far from competition, the folks who were so lucky to have as trusted colleagues worked together a lot already in preservation and other areas. They form a set sort of network in washington in some very complicated areas that involve chemistry and physics, more akin to art and science in terms of preservation and you dont handle these tens of millions without that cooperation so i can say we gain a lot and learn a lot from working with your colleagues. The task of digitization of your collections seems mind boggling, and i guess the skinny on the library of congress, before you took the job, was that it was behind the curve in digitization, so youve got a big task ahead of you. How are you approaching it . Actually, the library of congress and my predecessor started a wonderful digitization effort, in the early 90s, and unfortunately, that effort of technology caught up with the effort, and so were ready looking at making sure we combine the preservation and conservation efforts that relate to digitization with what collections might be useful for k through 12 education, as well as actually being popular as well, and lining those things up. So theres a big push to make sure that were digitizing things that could be useful more rapidly. How about your task in digitization and also Public Accessibility . Its enormous. Weve been very successful i think to date with commercial partnerships, anyone who is interested in Family History knows about ancestry. Com, most of that content comes from the National Archives, so we have contracts with them for digitization of genealogical materials. Weve on it a fair amount of digitization inhouse ourselves but its a massive, massive project. And thats digitization from paper, but now the records are being created electronically so theres no paper equivalent and were building an electronic archive at the same time. This is a good time to talk more about the charge of Public Access to documents and how really making more things transparent on more expedited schedule. Can you talk about the charge that youve been given and the mission and the philosophy behind it . Part of the open Government Initiative that i described earlier about making, being responsible for my accepting the position, was the creation of the National Declassification Center within the national archive, massive amounts of material thats classified, government records that are classified and the attitude on the part of the administration that we needed to open that up. So a president ial executive order outlining criteria by which material could remain classified, weapons of mass destruction, national security, only mandate to review about 400 million pages of classified material going back to world war i, with the deadline threeyear deadline, which we have met, reviewed and about i would say 85 of it has been released to the open channels. More importantly, a process has been created that will expedite the review of materials, so we dont get into these huge backlog situations again. When you are at the point that you want to be, what would be the net result for society . The latest, our latest Strategic Plan has a bold goal in that digitize everything in the collection so that Anyone Around the world will have access to this material at their fingertips, dont have to come to washington to study history, or you know, the reason that the National Archives was created was so that the American Public could hold their government accountable for its actions. Youll be able to do that from home. The smithsonian has a robust web presence, and you talked about the size of the collection. First of all, how much of that is succeaccessible to the publi through the Museum Experience and then what about the rest of it . How are you making it available to people . Well, i spent about 20 years doing research in medical image processing, dinl advertising cardiac images and analyzing them so i thought i was going to, it would be hard to impress me when i came to the smithsonian. Ive been very impressed with the digitization work going on at the smithsonian. We have in our collection archives and books and a lot of other kinds of objects, so its a big challenge to know how much of it to digitize in what order and how much money to spend on digitizing it as well. So finally to answer your question, at any one time with the collection as big as ours, even with 19 museums and galleries, only a tiny frak of what we have can be on public display, so to follow davids words, there is a big impetus from inside the smithsonian and outside to make more of it accessible. We have about, let answer say over 20 million visitors a year to our museums, which is a big number but its a small number, compared with a size of our country and a tiny number compared to the size of the world. And so we feel a strong motivation to make more of it accessible. Now our collection has out of the 156 things, over 140 million of them of the 156 million are biological specimens related to the National Museum of Natural History so thats a complicated area. I doubt that well ever digitize all of those things, nor do i think we really have to. But in other areas, for example the asian Art Galleries which are fabulous, we have digitized the entire collection so even though only a fraction of it is on display, even if we have the luxury of living in washington and coming to the mall frequently from home, as david says, right now today you can look at anything in that collection because of that digitization effort, and so were trying to do better and better, and one area that we moved into is threedimensional scanning threedimensional digitization, and we recently with the help of auto Desk Incorporated have done inside the apollo 11 capsule 3d digitization and actually found some things that had been forgotten. Thats right. Some notes from the astronauts and so on so it was a very exciting experience and the smithsonian i take no credit for it, long before i got there was doing cuttingedge work not only dinl advertising as. Of our collection as we can to make sense but in some senses leading the field of digitization of some objects nationally. What technologies are you exsitded about just on the forefront or just beyond reach right now . 3d, also the tactile experiences where you could actually have the experience of turning the pages remotely and all of those types of things would make the experiences really come alive. Im most excited about social media and how its transformed the way people are interacting with us and the opportunities that we have exploited through social media to engage the public with the, that were doing. So we have, as i said we have 13 billion pieces of paper, many of them large percentage of them in script, handwritten, in cursive, cursive isnt being taught much in schools anymore so weve got generations of school kids now who cant read our records. So through social media we have loaded thousands of records onto our website, and citizen archivist project and people from all over the world transkribing for us. The use of social media to engage the public really excites me. Ive noticed in the short time ive been here ive been exploring the library and invited people right after my swearing in to explore with me and the response has been tremendous in terms of twitter and i tweet one or two things a day of the Worlds Largest comic book collection, relating it to something thats happening, and people have said oh, i didnt know the library had that. The next time im in washington im going to visit and thats just been growing so its a wonderful opportunity to share. What technology are you most excited about . Im thinking a lot about augmented reality and Virtual Reality and just to quickly define those, Virtual Reality is a Computer Programmer developing an artificial world, if you will, a world thats made up, and you can walk into a structure, but more commonly people are thinking about and beginning to commercialize it more broadly by putting some sort of a headset on, and that complete experience is made up by the Computer Programmer. Augmented reality is a technology in which theres a real object, lets say this very attractive cspan mug, and what you would do with augmented reality is the Computer Programmer with her or his magic would develop a reality around the mug, so let answer ss say that this mug was produced or very carefully and lovingly, i know each one is done by hand, written on like that, that would be a way to put the mug in context, and i have a group of High School Students from throughout d. C. Who mayor bowzer administration helped us put together as a Youth Advisory Council to me and ive been asking them, what do you think the next technologies will be, and its interesting, theyve told me two things to a person which has affected my view of technology for the future of the smithsoni smithsonian. To a person they want to make sure we preserve the collections. They think theres Something Special about being with the authentic object. I was very surprised to hear each one of them say that and they want us to use things like augmented reality to put that object in context, and so thats the direction at least were think being now. Were talking at a time when accusations, reports of russian hacking are much in the news. How concerned are the three of you as leaders of these institutions about hackers, foreign or domestic, in your collections . Very concerned. Very. As i said, the shift from paper to electronic recordkeeping is under way. We will have an allelectronic archive in the near future, and the security of that content is something that im very concerned about. Im concerned about it not only for the reasons of our mission, but also as an employer. Im concerned about the records of our employees, and all of us here have suffered in greater or lesser degree to the hack that went into the office of Personnel Management not too long ago, and so i think any operation these days forprofit or notforprofit has to expend serious effort thinking about Cyber Security and then auditing those efforts to see how were doing. My personal opinion is that nothing is completely secure in the world anymore, nothing. But i think we do our best to make it as secure as we possibly can. You also have priceless collections that are available to the public and or to researchers. What about security of a tactile kind of people and the library of congress famously has had some incidents that i can think of over the years. How concerned are you now the security measures available to you about the preservation from theft and things of that nature . Constant vigilance. Yes. Ive been in this business long enough to know that this delicate balance between access and protection is real, and its nothing that you can take for granted. Statistics show that a large percentage of the problem is insider theft. So raising awareness of the entire staff, not only about keeping an eye on the user community, but on each other. Is that discouraging as a boss . Its very discouraging. Its very discouraging especially when we had an incident where a long time staff member was caught stealing film from the National Archives and this is you know, the damage that it does to the entire staff about one of our colleagues who has abused the responsibilities is really real. Thats one of the reasons that i made sure that i follow all of the security protocols, so when i come in, i open all of my bags, even my handbag, which can get embarrassing but its okay, and on the way out i do it because i want that to be the culture that even the librarian is subject to and follows the security internal security measures. Such an important point that carla makes. I do the same thing, in my case, simply with the badge i wear on my belt normally and i think its very, very important, and the point that david made is also critical, the balance between security and access. Its not only about the collection, its about the safety of the many millions of people who enter here, and we try very hard to hit the right balance. I must say coming into the library today, carla, i thought it was great. There was magnetometers and metal detector, there was a scanner, yet the people were efficient, polite, and we just moved it right through, even on quite a chilly day, by washington standards, those who may watch this from my home state of wisconsin or iowa, where i live illinois. Consider us a little wimpy to be worried about it. Its okay. Even with all the extra stuff we had on today it was smooth. We work closely with the u. S. Capitol police and they are protecting not only the treasures that we have but the people, and theyre very cognizant and we had an Appreciation Day for them, where they brought in families and we brought out all of the enforcement and interesting things for them and their families to show them how much we appreciate them. How many visitors does the library get . In the different buildings, because there are three buildings right here in this complex, about almost 2 million. And how many do you have . Downtown in washington about 1. 5 million, and then we have probably 4 million in our president ial library. And is july 4th the big day . We own july 4th. We have a wonderful ceremony on the constitution avenue steps, reading out the declaration of independence, and its the best place in town to watch the parade. And how many visitors does the smithsonian get in the year . In aggregate over 20 million visitors a year but to be fair to my colleagues thats over 19 museums and galleries and as i always mention the zoo, a very beloved place. I love to go to the zoo. Its disturninging when bae bae does something theres National Headlines and when i do something nobody seems to care. Maybe we need a camera in your office. Maybe not. Maybe not. The purviews of these two institutions are fairly mandated, but the smithsonian is iconic in the sense that so many people say i want to be preserved in the smithsonian or my stuff is being preserved in the smithsonian so how does that process work, where you make the decision about what is preserved and whats not . So the smithsonian is an Academic Institution and that is to say there are professionals in different fields, curators, art historians, scientists, who are hired to have the professional knowledge and the sense, the training to decide whats of lasting value and whats necessary to make the collection even more complete, and so a lot of people do very very happily for us offer things from their lives, and a great example of that, the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture which opened just a couple of months ago, two and a half months ago has a 37,000 item collection right now, about 3,000 of which are on display and the majority of those objects are from people around the country, sometimes because our curators reached out and found something, and sometimes many times because the person said this is something that weve had in our closet, in our attic, on our coffee table that somehow if youre telling the story of africanamericans in this country, maybe you would want to have, and so again its a dance. This time between something out there that someone knows about, either we know about it or someone closer to home knows about it, and then what we need, how it fits into the overall scheme of our collection, so its an art more than a science. Well, this is going to be a tough question because i know you love all your children equally but singlemost amazing thing in your collection . For all of you . Oh, thats rough. I know its a tough one. Im going to jump in on that one, i know ill be in trouble whatever i say but again to bring up my dad. We moved from milwaukee to los angeles about 18 months after the dodgers moved from brooklyn to los angeles, and my dad thought that was the greatest thing, so we used to go to Chavez Ravine when i was a kid and watch sandy cofax pitch. My dad would say were going to watch a lefthander strike out a lot of guys. I was in the back room of the museum of American History brought tears to my eye to see sandy cofaxs mitt. I said can i look at it . They said sure. I said can i hold it . They said sure. I said can i put my hand in it . They said no you may not. I said but im the secretary, and they said thats fascinating. I do love all my children, as you put it. Its very hard and im in a wonderful position that i havent found it yet but so far the contents of Abraham Lincolns pockets. Our cameras have been to see that collection. Its pretty impressive. The day he was assassinated and they were find in a safe in the librarians office and im still looking around for some treasure like that, but its so tell that story. I dont know it. Well, the librarian at the time mr. Putnam discovered it in the ceremonial office now in this building, it was the librarians office, a safe he opened something, and the story goes that no one knew the combination so they extricated a gentleman from prison who was known to be very handy at that type of thing, and had him come and opened it up and when they opened the safe there was only one thing in the safe and it was a small battered box that had been given to the library of congress by Abraham Lincolns granddaughter, and inside with the note was these are the spectacles, a few articles that he had clipped that were critical of him and all of those things, and it really resonated with me because Abraham Lincoln is buries, of course, in springfield, illinois, in the same cemetery that all of my relatives are buried. Theres only one cemetery in springfield, so we would, that was traditioned in the land of lincoln but ill find Something Else im sure. Every day a discovery just knocks my socks off, but if i had to choose one, i would choose three. The charters, the charters of freedom, the declaration, the constitution and the bill of rights. You know that the british burned the town and the night before that happens steven pleasanton, a clerk in the state department rolled them up, stuffed them into linen sacks, commandeered a wagon, tucked them into the hills of virginia and theyre with us today because of that rescue. So i would say the charters are free. Since were getting along so well today at least in public, i want to say that i actually have a favorite of each of their collections if my colleagues really cared about me theyd loan me in my office. What are they . A beautiful glass flute i was shown, im glad to take that off your hands any time you think that would be okay and the bill of rights, its a small thing. Oh, sure. Just send it on over, right . Julia childs kitchen. Thats my favorite. Youre breaking up, carla, youre breaking up. I visit that regularly. I would take some of that stuff. We are talking on bill of rights day, as a matter of fact. So there it is. There you are. In fact this morning at the National Archives in the rotunda, 32 new citizens of the United States were sworn in, in front of the bill of rights. The bill of rights. How many times a year . Constitution of rights day and bill of rights day. Our time is going pretty quickly. Im going to go over with your staffs approval by a few minutes. An important part which is telling the american story when its not always pretty. Many of the things weve talked about are values that we preserve, but our history has not always been pretty and i wonder how you all as conservators of that wrestle with telling that aspect of our story. The mission from the very beginning has been to provide, collect and take care of the records of the country without any judgment to whether were telling the good stories or the bad stories, to collect everything, so the government, so that the American People can hold the government accountable, and that means telling how decisions were made, whether they were good decisions or bad decisions, and letting future generations make their own decisions about whether the, it was a right decision or not. One of the things im most proud of is that many of our president ial libraries have created Decision Centers where they allow especially schoolchildren access to the records of an important decision that was made during that administration. They sit around a cabinet table, assume the role of members of the cabinet have access to the same documents that the members of the cabinet had, and discussed the issue at the truman library, its dropping the bomb, for instance. But with living president s, is that task a little more difficult . Is there more of a pull . Im very proud of how thats been implemented at the george w. Bush library, where the same kind of information, opportunities are available in electronic form for students to make the same kind of decisions that that president made about the wars. The library of congress . The veterans history project, where you have the records of veterans and they show the pain and what the feelings are and were, and that history sometimes isnt told that graphically, and also iconic figures like the rosa parks collection, and her letters to her mother, where she talks about how she felt so worthless, and depressed, and she worried that telling the truth about her story, these were notes before she did her book, autobiography, were disillusioned people, if they knew she had these feelings. Dr. Skorton . I have great confidence and faith in the American People, i really do, and i think they want and deserve to know the whole story. And so we also strive to do what my colleagues strive to do, and that is to let history speak for itself. Several many areas, virtually any area in the smithsonian tells stories that are uplifting and stories not our proudest moment, africanamerican museum, American Indian and others. My point of view is that the American People have a right and that i have confidence in that they want to know the whole story. By the way, in case it comes up in your thinking, i think thats true of our elected leaders as well. I think they are people who want to know whats going on, and want to have us hang onto it, so whether its the library of congress, the are kiflz of ty ce way the public can, thats information they can count on at face value. Since you all have to work on future planning, lets close by having you tell our audience what your institutions will look like ten years from now. The smithsonian will be a combination of a lot of attention to objects, works lot attention to objects, works of art, the authentic material, and newer and newer technologies. I believe that well do even a better job of telling the story of different people in america whose stories have not been told enough. And i think, therefore, people coming into the Smithsonian Museum yums and archives in the days to come will feel even more engaged in what they see. Youll be finishing your first term at that point. What do you want the institution to look like . The institution will be at your fingertips. And it will be a place where you can have the experience of looking at the original documents as well as having all types of experiences with whatever items we have. So, you will be able to have access to the library of Congress Wherever you are. Massive amounts of digitizization will allow us to do a better job of connecting the three institutions, in terms of the User Experience will not be just one of us but to have a suite of information about whatever topic youre searching for. We will be much more electronic and much more collaborative. Beyond your institutions with other libraries and museums around yes. Definitely. It will be interconnected with people . Thats right. It has been a very quick 50 minutes. And, thank you very much. Id like to invite you to join us again in the future some time because theres lots more things to talk about. Thank you for the time youve given us today. Thanks. Were in this together. Youre watching American History tv on cspan3 every weekend, on congressional breaks and on holidays, too. Follow us on twitter, like us on facebook, and find our programs and schedule on our website. Cspan. Org history. In 1953 Washington National cathedral installed two stain glass windows honoring confederate generals robert e. Lee and stonewall jackson. A response to the decision to remove pictures of confederate flags from those windows. We talk about the flags history to slavery as well as modern day racism. Is about an hour and 50 minutes. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. My name is randy hollerith, im the dean of the Washington National cathedral. It is an honor and pleasure to have you here with us. And to begin the first of a series of conversations that we hope will be a blessing to many