ever had. it's the highest-paying job they've ever had, and it's a job that they don't want to give up. and so their reelection is more important than the actual problem-solving that needs to go on in d.c. >> watch afterwords, sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's book tv. next, american history tv hosts a discussion with david skorton, david ferri etch ro and carla hayden. they talk about the challenges they face and the opportunities they see ahead. from the library of congress. >> we are here in the library of congress for a discussion among three people. and my opening question is to our host of this conversation,

carla hayden, who is the brand-new, 14th librarian of congress starting her job in the fall of 2016. why did you take this job? let me have you finish this sentence. i took this job because i want to -- >> open this wonderful treasure chest to as many people as possible. it has the room that we're in now has six stradivarius violins and original scores from beethoven, hayden, no relation. and there are so many things here, and that's why i took the job. >> david fair yoe, you've been at this a little longer. you started the job in 2009. do you remember why you said yes? >> i said no twice. when i got the first calls about 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 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. david skorton. >> we were a patriotic family, and corny in this regard, and my dad said if you ever had a chance to do something nice for the country, do it. and it felt like i could participate in some small way in preserving the nation's 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 work in that sector. >> i wish the camera had been rolling for the conversation when you all sat down, because clearly there's a rapport among the three of you. how often do you get together like this? >> i've only been here a couple of months, but i've reached out to these two gentlemen, and we are going to be doing more of this type of, not just discussion about what we're doing, but what we could do together. so this is about the third time that short period of time that we've had a chance to really say hey, we're going to work together. >> both david and carla have been forces for bringing this together and beyond us, a much larger part of the cultural community in washington. and it's quite a community. it requesgoes from the large institutions that you is see here to some smaller ones that

are just jewels. so they've really drawn me in and others, and i think you're going to see more of this kind of arms around each other sort of thing. >> thank you for doing it with the c-span audience today. we have a lot of topics that i have on my pad here to cover. but i've asked each of you if you could give us a very capsulized history of your institution. >> mine is the oldest, 1800. it was started to inform congress, it started with a small collection of books housed in the capitol. so the building that we're in is a building that was built and opened in 187. and thomas jefferson, famously, after a fire in the capitol, gave his collection of, really of monumental library at that time for congress. and it's 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 is the library of congress? >> the library of congress has 162 million items. and those items include everything from the sheet music i mentioned to abraham lincoln's life mask. 32 million books. all types of things in it. 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. 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 $500,000 in those days, to the united states. and after some deliberation, the united states decided to accept it and set up something in mr. smithson in his bequest wrote that he wanted the institution to be oriented toward what he called the increase in diffusion of knowledge. and that's 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 just 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, a great interest of mine, is fabulous here. when i first came, carla's 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 flute collection. >> yep, they even let me play one. in an inadequate fashion. >> o h, my goodness. >> david ferriero yours is the new kid on the block, but still75 years old. how did it come about? >> it wasn't until 1934. and i'm convinced it was because of roosevelt's 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, a fabulous member of history at chapel hill and creating what would be the process for managing the records of the government. and that's what the mission has been since the very beginning. the creation of the records 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, of the president having to lay down the law about this is the way we're going to do business. so at this point, it's a collection of 13 billion pieces

of paper, 43 million photographs, miles and miles of film and video, and the fastest part of the correction, fastest-growing part of the collection is electronic records, about 5 terabytes of electronic records so far in our custody. >> is everything the government produces, is it all saved? >> not everything. no. there are two sets of laws that govern our work. the presidential records act and the federal records act, and the federal records act governs the executive branch. and every agency has a records manager. they create records schedules 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 historical value that need to be kept forever are transferred to us. that's federal side. on the presidential records side, everything, everything that's created in the white house is record. >> we should also explain that that means the presidential

library system. >> 13 presidential libraries are part of national archives also. >> i'm going to come back to the presidential libraries later, but we have an incoming president who tweets. >> that's right. >> so are, will you be gathering all of his tweets? and does that start on january20th? >> it starts when, right after the inaugural ceremony, it starts. as soon as he is sworn in, the record-keeping starts. and tweets won't be new to the national archives. we've been collecting this president tweets also. so we've been collecting his tweets. so there are tweets now coming from the white house. >> yes, but very different kinds of tweets. it will be interesting for future generations of researchers. this is another round robin question, but i don't want to spend too much time in the weeds. but your organizations and how they're struck turptured and go is not known by many people

watching. you were appointed by the president and went through a confirmation process. who is your boss and how long is your term? >> the congress, actually. it's a ten-year term. and the librarian of congress is the only staff member, employee of the library of congress that is a presidential appointment. the other people who work, 3 20 people who work at the library. are federal employees, government employees. it's not an appointment process. when i mention congress, the appropriations committee have oversight and quite a bit of interaction with congress. >> is there still a joint committee? >> yes, joint committee, and it's both houses. >> and are they active and involved? >> they're active. and what's 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, you're both nodding, because you've 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 legislatu legisla legislators knew about history and were aware of it. >> how much is your operating budget and how much is federally subsidized? >> just about all of it. $632 million. >> and you do accept private donations as well? >> yes, i'm looking at my colleagues, especially smithsonian has done a wonderful job of being able to work with patriot patriotic philanthropy. so the library congress is relatively new to accepting, the

fact that we're in this room with the gift of ms. coolidge, mrs. coolidge to, with the flutes and the stradivarius instruments as part of that. >> is that first lady coolidge that gave this? >> no. >> didn't know how far back in history. >> what about the archivist. who do you report? >> the president. >> do you have a governing body. >> we have oversight committees both in the house and the senate, but our main communication is with the white house. >> and what is your operating budget, and is it all federally funded? >> it's about $450 million. and each of the presidential libraries as well as the flagship national archives have private foundations that s supplement that. >> dr. skorton, you have a board of regions, and the chief justice, the vice president and also the leaders of congress serve on it.

how did that come about? >> you're stealing all my thunder, but that's okay. >> i'm sorry. >> it's a very interesting governing system. there's a 17-member governing board. nine are private citizens. no more than one from any state except from the district of columbia which can have two. six members of congress. three from the senate, three from the house, the vice president and the chancellor of the smithsonian is the chief justice. and i report to that board. i'm not a political appointee. i'm not a federal employee. the smithsonian has something called a trust instrumentality. the budget is $1.4 million. about one third are not federal employees. the and then of,06,000 voluntee

and then another 6,000 or so digital volunteers who help us with things from afar. and that's also the case. i know with the archives, i'm not sure about the library, but it's very interesting, the governance process, and it works. it works very well. and each entity, each museum and research center has an advise ray boaadvisery board. but the actual governance is done by the 17-person board of regents it's called. a >> are they active? >> very active. they meet four times a year, and we meet by telephone every month. so they're quite active. >> well, we're 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 your answer, i have to make one provision, because i'm staring at, and she's staring at

me, ms. gladys woodall who was the donor -- she's looking, and i think even the candles are flickering a little bit. there she is. well, mrs. coolidge gave the auditorium that the stradivariuses are played in. this is patriotic philanthropy. but the lights did flicker. thank you, david. you understand. >> i think that the private/public partnership has been instrumental in helping us move forward. there are certain things that the government can't fund, can't afford to fund. and there are lots of people as carla mentioned, love history and want to support these institutions. so we have something for

everyone. preservation. digitalization. exhibitions, all those things, wonderful opportunities for collaboration. >> we're also a public/private partnership. the smithsonian's budget is about $1.4 billion. and roughly 62% comes from federal appropriations and the rest comes from a combination of retail, shops, online shopping, imax theaters, cafes and some other things and philanthropy. and we've been very, very fortunate over a period of time, especially recently in getting generous philanthropy. we've passed the $1.5 billion mark. and, as you mention, i come from higher education. that's a lot of philanthropy for an entity that doesn't have a lot of unusual sense nor a football team. so far as i know, not a football team. >> i know since you look to many donors, you would be loathe to single out one, but i really do want to, because you and i have

worked with the archives and david rubenstein. 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 he's had and also what kind of editorial control does one seek when you give that kind of money? or do you still get to have your independence when you put things together? >> that's the best thing about working with david. there's no pressure on you. he does not have, doesn't direct how the resources are used. at least in our, 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 he's been very generous to the national archives. he bought ross perot's copy of

the 1297 magna car at that. a he was the first person to welcome me to washington. he graduated from duke university, he checked with the president there to check me out and make sure i was a credible person to be taking care of his magna carta but never pressure in terms of how we display or making decisions for us. >> what has a single donner like that meant to the smithsonian? >> let me back up a little bit and talk about the general case. philanthropic fund raising is sort of a dance where you have to bring together somebody with capacity, it doesn't have to be huge capacity but a passion for something or other and you try match that up with some priority that the institution has, and when those things come together, it's a beautiful dance.

but one of the things about david rubenstein, he has a broad range of things he's interested in, not only historical documents but a voracious reader of history. he knows a lot of things. i'm sure you do know. when you see him do an interview, he uses no notes. he somehow manages to take it from memory. so he's truly an intellectual person. he's been a terrific partner for us as well, because not only the generosity, which is the obvious point, but also because he wants to do what the institution finds to be a high priority. and that's been without, without a doubt what he's 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 others know that he helped repair the washington monument after the earthquake a few years ago. and now he's helping to -- >> replace the elevator.

>> in the washington monument, doing something with the lincoln moi memorial. so he really, truly wants to share his passion i would say, as well as his wealth through these acquisitions. >> he wants to grow readers. you mentioned he's a voracious reader. he credits the library i just left in baltimore, i grew up there. 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 he'd 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. he sponsors literacy awards, fofor not-for-profit organizations.

he believes in the power of knowledge and literacy. and that's what has been just wonderful for me. >> he has a deep sense of responsibility. for funding these, these 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 absolutely 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 it's 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 thick and thin and through administrations that have been democrat, presidents, republican presidents and two whigs. we've had very generous support, but without the edge of excellence that we can get from philanthropy, we just wouldn't be able to do the things that we do. >> each of you is charged with conserving our nation's legacy and our history. are the lines of demarcation clearly drawn or do you ever compete with one another as institutions for things that you'd like to conserve? >> i have enough in my custody now that i wouldn't be fighting with these two colleagues for more of the content. i think there's 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 and far beyond, as experts in some very complicated areas that involve chemistry and physics, more akin to art than science in terms of preservation. and you don't handle these tens of millions or billions of things without that kind of cooperation. so i can say that 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 you've 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 we're really 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 there's a big push to make sure that we're digitizing things that could be useful more rapidly. >> how about your task in digitization and also public accessibility? >> it's enormous.

we've 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. we've done a fair amount of digitization in-house ourselves. but it's a massive, massive project. and that's digitization from paper. but we're also in the environment where the records are now being created electronically so there's no paper equivalent. and we're 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 you've 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 that's classified, government records that are classified and the attitude on the part of the administration that we needed to open that up. so a presidential 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 -- three-year 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 don't 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 to digitize everything in the collection so that anyone around the world will have access to this material at their fingertips, don't 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. you can do that from home. you'll 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 accessible to the public 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, digitizing 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. i've 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 it's 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 fraction or let's say a fraction of what we have can be on public display. so to follow david's words, there is a big impetus from inside the smithsonian and outside to make more of it accessible. we have about -- let's say over 20 million visitors a year to our museums, which is a big number but it's 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 that's a complicated area. i doubt that we'll ever digitize all of those things, nor do i think we really have to. but in other areas, for example the sackler 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 we're trying to do better and better. and one area that we moved into is three-dimensional scanning, three-dimensional digitization, and we recently with the help of

auto desk incorporated have done inside the apollo 11 capsule 3-d digitization and actually found some things that had been forgotten. >> that's 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 cutting-edge work, not only digitizing as much 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 excited about just on the forefront or just beyond reach right now? >> 3-d, 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. >> i'm most excited about social media and how it's transformed the way people are interacting

with us and the opportunities that we have exploited through social media to engage the public with the work that we're doing. so we have, as i said we have 13 billion pieces of paper, many of them, a large percentage of them in script, handwritten, in cursive, cursive isn't being taught much in schools anymore. so we've got generations of school kids now who can't read our records. so through social media we have loaded thousands of records onto our website, and citizen archivist project, we have people from all over the world transcribing for us. the use of social media to engage the public really excites me. >> i've noticed in the short time i've been here i've 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 world's largest comic book collection, relating it to something that's happening, and people have said, oh, i didn't know the library had that. the next time i'm in washington i'm going to visit. and that's been growing. so it's a wonderful opportunity to share. >> what technology are you most excited about? >> i'm 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 that's 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 there's a real object, let's say this very

attractive c-span 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's say the day 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 bowser administration helped us put together as a youth advisory council to me and i've been asking them, what do you think the next technologies will be? and it's interesting, they've told me two things to a person which has affected my view of technology for the future of the smithsonian. to a person they want to make sure we preserve the collection. they think there's 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 that's the direction at least we're thinking about now. >> we're 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 record-keeping is under way. we will have an all-electronic archive in the near future, and the security of that content is something that i'm very concerned about. >> i'm concerned about it not only for the reasons of our mission, but also as an employer. i'm 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, for-profit or not-for-profit, has to expend serious effort thinking about

cyber security and then auditing those efforts to see how we're 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, 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. >> i've been in this business long enough to know that this delicate balance between access and protection is real, and it's 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? >> it's very discouraging. it's 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. >> that's 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 it's 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 it's very, very important. and the point that david made is also critical, the balance between security and access. it's not only about the collection, it's 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. >> it's 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 they're 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 presidential library. >> and is july 4th the big day? >> we own july 4th. [ laughter ] we have a wonderful ceremony on the constitution avenue steps, reading out the declaration of independence, and it's 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, that's over 19 museums and galleries and as i always mention the zoo, a very beloved place. i love to go to the zoo. it's a little discouraging when bae bae the panda does something, there's national

headlines and when i do something nobody seems to care. >> maybe we need a camera in your office all the time. >> 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 what's 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 what's of lasting value and what's 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 african-american 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 we've had in our closet, in our attic, on our coffee table that somehow if you're telling the story of african-americans in this country, maybe you would want to have, and so again it's 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 it's 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 single most amazing thing in your collection? for all of you? >> oh, that's rough. >> i know it's a tough one. >> i'm going to jump in on that one, i know i'll 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 we're going to watch a left-hander strike out a lot of guys. when i was shown the back room, so to speak, of the national museum of american history, it brought tears to my eye to see sandy cofax's 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 i'm the secretary, and they said that's fascinating. [ laughter ] that meant a lot to me to see that. i do love all my children, as you put it. >> it's very hard, and i'm in a wonderful position that i

haven't found it yet but so far the contents of abraham lincoln's pockets. >> our cameras have been to see that collection. it's pretty impressive. >> the day he was assassinated and the fact that they were found in a safe in the librarian's office. and i'm still looking around for some treasure like that, but it's so -- >> tell that story. i don't know it. >> well, the librarian at the time, mr. putnam, discovered it in the ceremonial office now in this building, it was the librarian's 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 lincoln's 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 buried, of course, in springfield, illinois, in the same cemetery that all of my relatives are buried. there's only one cemetery in springfield, so we would, that was tradition in the land of lincoln. but i'll find something else, i'm 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 happened, 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 they're with us today because of that rescue. so i would say the charters are free. >> since we're getting along so well today, at least in public, i want to say that i actually have a favorite in each of their collections if my colleagues really cared about me they'd loan me in my office. >> what are they? >> a beautiful glass flute i was shown, i'm glad to take that off your hands any time you think that would be okay, and the bill of rights, it's a small thing. >> oh, sure. >> just send it on over, right? >> julia child's kitchen. that's my favorite. >> you're breaking up, carla, you're 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? >> twice a year, constitution day and bill of rights day. >> our time is going pretty quickly. i'm going to go over with your staff's approval by a few minutes. an important part which is telling the american story when it's not always pretty. many of the things we've 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 we're 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 -- whether it was a right decision or not. one of the things i'm most proud of is that many of our presidential 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 discuss the issue. at the truman library, it's dropping the bomb, for instance. >> but with living presidents, is that task a little more difficult? is there more of a pull? >> i'm very proud of how that's 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 isn't 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, african-american museum, national museum of the american indian and many 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 that's true of our elected leaders as well. i think they are people who want to know what's going on and want to have us hang onto it, so whether it's the library of congress, the archives, or the smithsonian, they can access it the same way the public can, that's information they can count on at face value. >> since you all have to work on future planning, let's 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 of art, the authentic material, and newer and newer technologies. i believe that we'll 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 museums and archives in days to come will feel even more engaged in what they see. >> you will be just finishing your first term at that point. what do you want the institution to look like? >> the institution will be at your fingertips. 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

digitization will allow us to do a better job of connecting the three institutions in terms of the user experience will be not just one of us, but to have a suite of information about whatever topic you're searching for. we will be much more electronic and much more collaborative. >> and beyond your institutions, with other libraries and museums around the country? >> yes. >> definitely. >> this all will be connected to other people. it's been a quick 50 minutes. thank you very much. i would like to invite you to talk to us in the future because there's a lot more to talk about. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you for bringing us together. the museum of the american revolution in philadelphia opens on wednesday, the anniversary of the start of the revolutionary war. watch our live coverage of the ceremony. speakers include former vice

president joe biden, david mcculloch, museum of the american revolution president and ceo michael quynh and cokie roberts. plus performances by the philadelphia boys choir and an original cast member of the broadway musical "hamilton" it is live wednesday at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. and you can also watch the opening ceremony of the american revolution museum wednesday night at 8:00 eastern here on c-span3. >> c-span where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created by mer america's television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite

provider. discusses his lifelong interest in meems and historic sites with the brooklyn historical society president. he helped develop programs and exhibits all over the united states. his book is "curating america." he is also the author of the book that we're going to be more focused on tonight which is for sale in our shop. and richard has very kindly offered to sign copies of the booker