Treasures. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. Killer in the library of congress for a conversation with three people responsible for conserving the nations history and treasures. My question is for you, taking this job in 2016. What was your motivation . I wanted to open this wonderful Treasure Chest to his many people as possible. The room we are in now has six stradivarius violence iolins. Arius vol there are so many things here. That is why i took the job. You have been at this a lot longer, the 10th archivist of the United States, starting in 2009. Do you remember why you said yes . I had sent no toys. It took someone from the Transition Team to tell me what they were looking for. Of theyes because opportunity to participate in an administration that was serious and open, and thought that the National Archives have a role to play in that theme. You camevid skorton, from cornell university, a sprawling set of universities. Winding you say yes to such a different gig . A naturalist citizen. He said if you had the opportunity to do something nice for the country, now is the time to do it. I thought this would be a small way to preserve the nationss america. Nd tell it to i know that libraries and museums are among the most trusted institutions at a time when not every institutions trust. Trusted. Ution is rapportly there is a among the three of you. How often do you get together like this . Only a couple months. I reached out to these two gentlemen. We are going to do more about this type of not just discussion, but what we can do together. This is the third time in that short amount of time we have had we aree to say, hey, going to work together. Much larger part of the Cultural Community in washington. It is quite a community. It goes from large institutions that you see here, 21 that are nonetheless just jewels. I think you will see more of this arms around each other sort of thing. Thomas jefferson famously gave his collection of Monumental Library at that time for congress. It has grown to one of the largest libraries in the world. What is your set of responsibilities today. Ms. Hayden the library of congress has 162 million items, including the sheet music i mentioned to abraham lincolns life mask, 32 million books all , types of things. It also operates in the u. S. Copyright system. A lot of the materials that dont the National Library are part of that process. It also has the special forces that i like to call for congress, to build a reference on for congress. Susan the smithsonian came along next. How did it get started . In britain who never set foot in north america was an admirer of the early American Experience in 1970, and he decided to request his whole worth, about a half Million Dollars in those days, to the United States. After some deliberation, the United States decided to accept it and set up something. He wrote that he wanted the institution to be oriented to what he called the increase and diffusion of knowledge. That is what the smithsonian has turned out to be. Right now, there are 19 museums and galleries. The national zoo, always a favorite. 9 research centers. 15 museums affiliated around the United States, a traveling exhibition service. A lot of other things. Our collection is 156 million objects, including 2 million books. 154 million other things that range from biological specimens to the ruby slippers, to the hope diamond. I want to just put another plug in for the library of congress. Not only were all these things mentioned, but the Musical Instrument collection is fabulous here. When i first came, carlas predecessor gave me a tour. It was to die for. It was really something. Flute collection. Inthey even let me play one an inadequate fashion. Susan how did the National Archives come about . Around 1934. I was convinced it was because of roosevelts personal passion for records that it happened. He spent a lot of time selecting the first archivists. Creating what would be the process for managing the records of the government. That has been the mission from the beginning. The creation of the records schedules for each of the 275 executive branch agencies, managing the temperature the temporary courtesy storage of congress and supreme court, building staff, and creating the management of government records. Which looks easy from this perspective. But he had similar problems with agencies being reluctant to give up their records, the president having to lay down the law about this. It is at this point a collection of 13 billion pieces of paper, 43 million autographs, miles of film video. The fastestgrowing collection his electronic records, about five terabytes of electronic records. Susan is it all saved . Not everything. There are two sets of laws that record, thewe federal records act and the federal records act covers the federal branch. Every agency has a records manager. They create record schedules to identify the kind of records and how long they need to be retained in the agency for business or legal purposes. 2 3 of those that are legal value need to be kept forever get transferred to us. Everything that is created in the white house is record. Susan that means that the president ial Library System 13 president ial libraries are part of the National Archives also. Plunge into Current Events we have an incoming , president who tweets. Will you be gathering all of his tweets . Will that start january 20 . Mr. Ferriero it starts after the inaugural ceremony, as soon as he is sworn in, the recordkeeping starts. Tweets wont be new to the National Archives. We have been collecting this president s tweets. There are tweets now coming from the white house. Susan very different kinds, though. [laughter] it will be interesting for future generations of researchers. This is another round robin question. Your organizations and their structure is interesting and not known by many people watching. You were appointed by the president and went through the confirmation process. Who is your boss and how long is your term . Ms. Hayden the congress. It is a 10 year term. And the librarian of congress is the only staff member, employee, of the member of congress that is a president ial appointment. The other 3200 people that work at the library are government employees, federal employees. There is not an appointment process. When i mentioned congress, there are appropriations committees that have oversight, and quite a bit of interaction with congress. Susan is there still a joint committee . Ms. Hayden yes, in both houses. Susan are they active . Ms. Hayden they are active. What has been hard in working in congress is the interest of most of the legislators in history. You are both nodding, because you have noticed that. It was striking during my confirmation process, seeing how many things were on loan, or how much legislators knew about history, and wanted to cement their place in history. Susan what is your operating budget . How much of that is federally subsidized . Ms. Hayden just about all of it. 632 million. Susan you do accept donations as well. Dr. Hayden the smithsonian has done a wonderful job of working with patriotic philanthropy. The library has been relatively new to that. The fact that we are in this room was a gift of mrs. Coolidge with the flutes and stradivarius instruments. Susan first Lady Coolidge . Ms. Hayden no. Susan i dont know how far back the history went. What about the archivist . To whom do you report . The president. We have oversight committees in both the house and senate. Our main communication is with the white house. Susan what is your operating budget . Is it all federally funded . It is about 450 million. Each of the president ial libraries, as well as the flagship National Archives have private foundations that supplement that. Susan dr. Skorton, your government structure is interesting. There is a board of regents. There is a chief justice, Vice President , and leaders of congress serve on it. How did that come about . Dr. Skorton you are stealing my thunder. That is ok. It is an interesting governing system. There is a 70 member governing board 9 are private citizens. ,no more then one from any state, except the district of columbia, which can have two. 6 sitting members of congress. Not necessarily leaders, but three from the house and three from the senate. The chancellor of the smithsonian is the chief justice. I report to the board. I am not a political appointee or a federal employee. The smithsonian is something called a trust instrumentality. The budget is 1. 4 billion. 2 3 are6300 employees, federal employees, 1 3 are not. We have 6000 volunteers onsite. You can see them when you come to the library and archives. We have another 6000 or so digital volunteers who help us with things from afar. It is an interesting governing process, and it works well. Each entity, each Resource Center has an Advisory Board which is delegated certain aspects of functioning. The actual governance is done by rege17th person board of nts. Susan are they active . Dr. Skorton very active. We have a subset of the board that meets by telephone every month. They are quite active. Susan talking about funding, how important has private philanthropy been to what you want to get done, particularly in the digital age . Ms. Hayden before you answer, i have to make one provision. The donor is staring at me. She is looking, and i think even the candles are flickering a little that. [laughter] there she is. Gave those fluids and the stradivarius. Lights flickered a little bit, so you understand why i have to do that. [laughter] dr. Skorton i think that the Publicprivate Partnership has instrumental in moving forward. There are things that the government cannot afford to fund, and there are people that love history and want to support these institutions. We have something for everyone. Preservation, digitization, support of user education, exhibitions. All of those are wonderful for collaboration. We are also a Publicprivate Partnership. The smithsonians budget is about 1. 4 billion. Roughly 1. 2 comes from federal appropriations. The rest comes from a combination of retail and shopping, imax theaters, cafes , magazines and other things. , we have been fortunate in getting generous philanthropy. We are in the middle of the comprehensive campaign. We have already passed the 1. 5 billion mark. As you mentioned, i come from higher education. Philanthropy of for an entity that doesnt have a football team. Susan i know that you are dealing with so many donors, you dont want to single out one. I really want to, because you and i have worked on interview together on the National Archives. It is unusual in a generation to have a private philanthropist with pockets as deep as his have been for national treasures. Can you talk about his role, and what kind of editorial control does one seek when you give that kind of money . Do you get to keep your independence . That is the best thing about working with david. There is no pressure. He does not direct where the resources are used. At least in our work together. He is a passionate collector, of history and original documents, and unlike a lot of collectors he wants his , collection in the public. He wants to place them where people will see and appreciate them. He has been very generous to the National Archives. He bought ross perots copy of the 1297 magna carta. 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. He checked with the president to make sure that i was a credible person to be taking care of his magna carta. He has been incredibly supportive ever since. But never pressure in terms of how we displayed more making decisions for us. Susan what has a simple donor like that made to the smithsonian . Final talk about the more general case. My colleagues can agree that philanthropic fundraising is a bit of a dance. You bring together someone with , and a passion for something or other. You try to match that up with a priority that the institution has. One thing about David Rubenstein is that he has a broad range of things he is interested in. He is very interested in history. Not only historical documents, but he is a voracious reader of history. He knows a lot of things. As a ensure you know. When you see him do an interview, he has no notes and manages to take it from memory. He is truly an intellectual person. He has been a terrific partner. Not only the generosity, which is the obvious point, but because he wants to do what the institution finds to be a high priority. To give him credit far beyond the three of us sitting here, he does the same for the American People through a wide variety of monuments and memorials. Know that hes helped to repair the Washington Monument after the earthquake a few years ago. The elevator in the Washington Monument, and doing something to the lincoln memorial. He truly wants to share his passion and wealth these acquisitions with the American People. And he wants to grow readers. She credits the library that i Enoch Pratt Free Library in baltimore, and he credits that with encouraging his love of reading. He started checking out books. There was a limit of 12 books in one day, and he would have to wait for a week. This year at the National Book festival, he was there meeting people from all walks of life. See also sponsors literacy awards for nonprofit organizations encouraging young people to learn to read. In the powerieves of knowledge and literacy. That has been wonderful for me. He has a deep sense of responsibility for funding these institutions. It is not his own personal feeling. He influences others around him. Atrecently hosted a meeting the signers of the giving pledge. Three of us had the opportunity to present our institutions to these numbers. Susan is private philanthropy a uniquely american concept . Onesstitutions like the you run in other countries seek private donors as well . Unique is a word you want to use sparingly. It may not be unique, but it is much more of the american ethos than anywhere i have visited. There are generous people everywhere. It has been a big part of america. I can say with authority that the smithsonian would not be what it is without the Publicprivate Partnership. Although congress has been enormously generous with us. Through administrations, democratic and republican, we have had generous support. Without the excellence we can get from philanthropy, we could not do the things that we do. Susan each of you is charged with conserving our nations legacy in history. Compete with one another for things he would like to conserve you would like to conserve . I have enough in my collection now that i would be fighting with these two four more. We have had similar materials in terms of formats. We all have serious preservation needs. We have talented staff working for each of us in preservation units. We have some real opportunities for collaborative work. Far from competition, the folks we are so lucky to have as trusted colleagues worked together already in preservation. They form a network in washington and beyond of experts in some complicated areas that involve chemistry and physics, and also some things that are art than science. You cant handle these things without the kind of cooperation. Susan the task of digitization seems mindboggling. The library of congress was behind the curb on digitization. How are you approaching it . Ms. Hayden my predecessor started a wonderful digitization effort in the early 1990s. Unfortunately that technology caught up with the effort. We are looking at combining the preservation and conservation efforts that relate to digitization with whatever collections might be useful for, k12 education, as well as actually being popular. There is a big push to make sure that we are digitizing things that can be useful more rapidly. Susan how about your task . Also with public accessibility . Mr. Ferriero this is been an enormous. Anyone interested in Family History ancestry. Com. Most of the content comes from the archives. We have done a fair amount of digitization inhouse ourselves. We have done digitization elsewhere, it is a massive project. That is digitization from paper. We are in an environment where the records are created electronically. There is no paper equivalent. Susan this is a good time to talk about public access. Making more things transparent on an expedited schedule. Can you talk about the mission and philosophy behind your charge . Mr. Ferriero part of the open Government Initiative was the creation of a national declassification center. Massive amounts of material that are classified and added onto the part of the administration. We needed to open that up. A president ial executive order outlining criteria by which material could both remain classified. Weapons of mass destruction, National Security grid. Mandates review about 4 million pages of classified material going back to world war i with a threeyear deadline. We have met, reviewed, and 85 has been released. In process has been created that will expedite the review of materials so we dont get into huge backlog situations. Susan when you are at the point you want to be, what will be the result to society . Has a goal toplan digitize anything the collection has so that anyone can have access to this material at their fingertips. The reason the National Archives was created so that the American Public could hold government accountable for its actions. You can do that from home. Susan the smithsonian has a robust web presence. How much of that is credited to the Museum Experience and how are you making that available to people . This is about 20 years doing medical processing and digitizing cardiac images and analyzing them. I thought it was going to be hard to impress me coming into the smithsonian. I have been very impressed with the digitization work. We have in our collection, archives in books and a lot of objects. It is a big challenge to know how much to digitize in what order. To answer your question, at any one time with our collection, only a tiny fraction can be on public display. So there is a big impetus from inside the smithsonian and outside to make it more accessible. We have over 20 million visitor a year, that is a tiny compared with the rest of the world. We feel a strong motivation to make it accessible. Our collection has over 140 million biological special mens specimens related to natural history. I doubt we we will ever digitize those things. In our asian art galleries, we have digitized the entire collection. Even though only a fraction is on display, today you can look at anything in the collection because of the digitization effort. One area is three dimensional digitization. We incorporated inside the apollo 11 capsule, 3d digitization. We actually found some things, some notes from the astronauts. I take no credit for this. The smithsonian was doing great work. Not only digital lysing as much lysing as digital they aree can but also leading the field with some objects nationally. Susan what technologies are you excited about . Ms. Hayden 3d, also tactile experiences. Where you can have the experience of manipulating objects. All of those types of things that make the experience, life. I am excited about social media and the opportunities we exploited to engage the public. We have 13 billion pieces of paper. A large percentage of them in script and cursive. Cursive is not being talked too much. There is a generation of school kids who cant read our records. Through social media we have loaded a thousands of documents and have people transcribing for us. The use of social media excites me. Ms. Hayden in the short time i have been here, the response has tremendous in response in regard to having people come to visit on twitter. It tore relating something that has happened. They are in washington, they say they will visit. It is a wonderful opportunity. Susan what technology are you most excited about . I was thinking about augmented reality and virtual reality. Developing a artificial world. Something where you can walk into a structure. People are beginning to commercialize it by putting a headset on. That complete experience is made up by the programmer. Augmented reality in which there is a real object. Lets say this attractive cspan mug. The Computer Programmer could develop a reality around the mug. The day this one was produced i know each one is lovingly written by hand that would be the way to put it in context. We have a group of High School Students who helped us put together. I have been asking them, what do you think the next technologies will be . It is interesting, they tell me two things. It has affected my view of the future. To a person, they want to make sure we preserve the collections. They think it is special to be with the authentic objects. I was surprised to hear them say that. They want us to use augmented reality to put the object in context. Susan we are talking at a time when reports of russian hacking are in the news. How concerned are you about hackers in your collection . Very concerned. Very. As i said, the shift from paper to electronic recordkeeping is underway. We have an all electronic archive in the near future. The security of the content is something that i am very concerned about. Not only for the reasons of our mission, but as an employer. About the records of our employees. All of us here have suffered in greater or lesser degree because of the hacking in the office of personnel management. Any operation has to expend serious effort thinking about Cyber Security and auditing those efforts. My personal opinion is that nothing is secure. I think we can do our best. Susan you have priceless collections. That are available to the public and to the private citizens. The library of congress has had incidents in the past few years. How are you concerned now about the preservation from theft . Constant vigilance. I have been in this business long enough to know that the balance between access and protection is real. It is not something you can take for granted. Statistics show a large percentage of the problem is insider theft. Raising awareness about keeping an eye on each other. Susan is that discouraging . Very discouraging. We had an incident where a longtime staff member was caught stealing film from the National Archives. The damage that it does to the staff is real. Ms. Hayden that is one of the reasons i make sure i follow all the security protocol. When i come in, i open all of my bags. That can be embarrassing. On the way out, i do it. I want that to be the culture, that even the librarian is subject to the security measures. Such an important part point that she makes. I do the same thing with my badge and belts. The balance between security and access is critical. It is not only about the collection it is about the safety of the millions who enter. We try hard to hit the right balance. Earlier today, there were metal detectors and scanners. People were polite. Even on quite a chilly day by washington standards. In my home state of wisconsin or illinois, they might consider us to be a bit wimpy. Even with all the extra stuff, it was smooth. Ms. Hayden we work close with the u. S. Capitol police. They are protecting not only the treasures, but also the people. They are very cognizant. We had an Appreciation Day for them. We brought all of the interesting things out for the. We showed them how much we appreciated them. Susan how many visitors does the library get . Ms. Hayden almost 2 million. In washington, 1. 5 million. Then we have probably about 4 million in our president ial library. Susan is july 4 the big day . We own july 4. [laughter] we have a wonderful ceremony reading of the declaration of independence. It is the best place in town to watch the parade. Susan how many visitors to the smithsonian get . We get over 20 million visitors, but that is because that is considering all of the National Archives. It is discouraging when a panda does something, it is national headlines, but when i do something, nobody listens. [laughter] susan maybe we need a camera in your office. Maybe not. Susan the purviews of these institutions is mandated. Many say, i want to be preserved in the smithsonian. How does that process work to make the distinction . There are historians hired to have the professional knowledge to decide what is of lasting value and what is necessary to make the collection more complete. A lot of people happily offer things from their lives. A great example of that is the National Museum of african American History and culture opened to five months ago. They have a 37,000 item collection. Of those objects are from people around the country di. Many times the person said, this is something we have had in our attic or coffee table. If you are telling the story of africanamericans, maybe will want to have this. It is a dance between something that somebody knows about and what we need, what fits into the overall scheme of our collection. It is an art more than a science. Susan this is going to be a tough question. What is the single most amazing thing in your collection . Ms. Hayden that is tough. I will bring up my dad. We moved from milwaukee to los angeles after the dodgers moved to brooklyn. From brooklyn. Dad thought that was the greatest thing. He said we are going to watch a lefthander strike people out. When i was shown the backroom of the museum of natural history, it brought tears to my eyes to see sandy koufaxs mitt. I was i asked if i could hold it. They told me i could not put my hand inside of it. I love all of my children as you. Ut it di ms. Hayden it is a wonderful thing, i have not found yet. The contents of abraham lincolns pockets. I am still looking for a treasure. The library at the time discovered a safe. It was in the librarians office. The story goes that no one knew the combination, so they extricated someone from prison that was known to be handy. When they opened the safe, it was a small box that had been given to the library of congress by abraham lincolns granddaughter. The note is the there would be some spectacles. As well as a few articles that he had clipped that were critical. It resonated with me. He is buried at the same cemetery all of my relatives are. I will find Something Else i am sure. Every day a discovery knocks my socks off. If i had to choose one, id choose 3. The charter of freedom, constitution, and bill of rights. You know that the british burned the talent, the night before people rolled them to virginia and they are with us today because of that rescue. Since we are getting so getting along so well today. I have a favorite in each of their collections. If my colleagues really cared about me, they would loan me in my office. A beautiful glass flute, i will take that off your hands anytime. The bill of rights. Its a small thing. Ms. Hayden in your kitchen. I visit that regularly. Susan we are talking on bill of rights day. There were thousands of new citizens sworn in today. It is the biggest except for constitution day. Susan our time is going quickly. I am going to go over a few minutes. Telling the american story when it is not always pretty. We have talked about values we preserve. History has not been pretty. I wonder how you wrestle with that aspect. The mission has been to provide and take care of the records of the country without judgment to the good or bad stories. That way the people can hold the government accountable. Letting future generations make the decisions whether it was a right decision or not. One of the things i am most proud of is that our libraries have created decisions in terms, where they allow schoolchildren access to the records of decision made by that administration. They said a round a cabinet table, where the members of the cabinet has access to the same documents. They will discuss the issues. The United States dropping the bomb, for instance. Susan with living president s, is that task more difficult . I am proud that has been implemented at the george bush library. The same kind of info rmatrion opportunities are available for students. Susan the library of congress. Ms. Hayden the veterans history project. You have history of veterans and they show the pain, the feelings that were. Sometimes that history is not told. Iconic figures like the rosa parks collection, and her letters to her mother, where she talks about how she felt so worthless and depressed. She worried that telling the truth about her story, that it would disillusion people if they knew that she had these feelings. Dr. Skorton i have great confidence and faith in the American People. I think they deserve to know the whole story. We also strive to do that in letting history speak for itself. Virtually any area in the smithsonian tells stories that are uplifting and stories that are not our proudest moment, and whether that is in the is he loved the native american, the africanamerican, my point of view is that the American People have the right. My confidence is that they will want to know the whole story. By the way, i think that is true of our elected leaders as well. They are people who want to know what is going on and want us to hang onto it. Whether it is the library of congress, the smithsonian, they can come to us with information that they can count on face value. Susan since you have to work on future planning, lets closed by having you tell your audience what are institutions will look like 10 years from now. Dr. Skorton the smithsonian will be a combination of a collection to objects, works of art, authentic material, and newer technologies. I think we will do a better job of telling the story of different people in america whose stories have not been told enough. People coming in the days to come will feel more engaged in what they see. Susan he will be finishing your first term. Ms. Hayden the institution will