SJSU SLIS ALASC’s Tour of the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum

By Alison Leonard

In April, John Jackson, ALA Student Chapter Program Coordinator, organized a tour for San Jose State University’s School of Library and Information Science American Library Association Student Chapter (SJSU SLIS ALASC) of the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda, California.

The Nixon Library contains over 50 million documents relating to Nixon's time in office, consisting of more than 500,000 photographs, 700 hours of film, over 4,000 hours of "off air" video recordings, and 4,469 audio recordings, including the infamous "Nixon White House tapes." Additional information on the collection is available on the Library's website.

The tour was led by Dr. Gregory Cumming, Supervisory Archivist for the Nixon Library. Greg has formerly worked in the archives at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation.  The Nixon Library requires that all archivists be experts in certain periods of time in history. Greg’s expertise is in post-World War II American history.  The Library encourages their archivists to develop one-on-one relationships with researchers in order to assist them. Therefore, Greg has formed many professional relationships.

A Tour of the William H. Hannon Library

by Margaret Puentes

On Thursday, August 26, a small group of San Jose students visited the William H. Hannan Library at Loyola Marymount University.  The tour (hosted by ALASC) was conducted by Glenn Johnson-Grau, Head of Collection Development. The library is named after William H. Hannan, whose foundations donated $20 million for the construction of the library.  Hannan became a student at Loyola University (now Loyola Marymount University) in 1933.  Since his family could not afford the tuition, his mother sent a letter to president of the University requesting that her son be admitted to the school if he promised to pay back the school after he found a job.  The president admitted Hannan on a full scholarship ($200).  Since then, his foundations have contributed approximately $83 million in donations to the University.

The library was in development for 2 years and opened in July 2009.  It replaced the old library building, which is currently being renovated into a student union.  As you enter the new library, there are touch-screen panels on the wall with information for visitors.  Near the entrance is Jazzman’s Café and media lounge, which was added due to numerous requests by students and staff.  On the first floor is the Information Commons, which contains the print reference collection and 85 computers which have double platforms, meaning that they may be booted up with either a Windows or Mac OS, depending on the user’s preference.  Students may also plug their laptop into the network or use the building’s wireless capabilities.