Amount Requested: $19,200,000
The Roosevelt Library is a federal facility managed by the National Archives and Records Administration.  It is our nation's first (and oldest) presidential library.  It was constructed under the President's personal direction in 1939-41.  Two wings were added in 1969-71 in memory of Eleanor Roosevelt. It holds the 17 million page archive of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and 385 of their associates. It is the world's leading archive of the New Deal and World War II.  It also houses a historical museum and Roosevelt family collections that convey the importance of the Roosevelt era to 115,000 museum/research visitors and 18,000 students annually.

The requested funding will help improve the library's infrastructure, which is dangerously deteriorated.  The library's main wiring dates from 1941.  Its heating and air conditioning systems violate NARA's (and industry) standards for the long-term preservation of historical materials.  Its security and fire saftety systems are outmoded and inadequate, threatening both public safety and the world's only repository of Roosevelt holdings.  The basement floods from groundwater, the septic system is 67 years old, and roofs and flashing leak. Archives storage space exceeds capacity, even though new materials are donated on a regular basis.  Workspaces and stacks do not meet modern security standards, putting the archives at risk of theft. Museum exhibts are outmoded and the public cannot view more than a small fraction of the museum collection.  Permanent exhibits that tell the story of the Roosevelt presidency are twenty to thirty years old.  The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute has raised $5.5 million in private funding to modernize and enlarge the exhibits in permanent galleries.  The library building's electrical and environmental systems are too outmoded to accommodate state-of-the-art electronics and interactives.