HYDE PARK — Barack Obama accumulated a lot of stuff during his presidency and it’s still not clear where people should go if they want to see it all.
The National Archives and Records Administration is holding about 32,000 artifacts that are part of Obama’s time as president and can't be digitized as part of the Obama Foundation’s ambitious plan to house only a few physical records.
Among those physical artifacts are a 9½-foot surfboard from the prime minister of Australia; a copy of the “Witcher 2” video game from the prime minister of Poland; and a framed watercolor painting of two men playing basketball from the chancellor of Germany.
None of those, nor more than 700 other gifts from foreign dignitaries, are technically Obama’s. They, like all of that paperwork and 200 terabytes of electronic records, belong to the American public.
But with Obama planning to go digital with his presidential center planned for Jackson Park, it’s unclear where one would go to see the presidential surfboard up close.
On May 3, the archives announced the Obama Foundation would pay to digitize 17,000 cubic feet of records and paperwork that tell the story of the Obama administration. The roughly three-quarters of those records that aren’t classified would then be accessible through the presidential center. The physical copies would be stored in a National Archives facility elsewhere.
Lisa Sheehan, a spokeswoman for the National Archives, said the records temporarily are being stored in a warehouse in Hoffman Estates. They eventually will be moved to an unidentified National Archives facility.
That means the big stone building that will be the centerpiece of the presidential center campus will not be full of paperwork or Obama's copy of a Stevie Wonder record from Hassanal Bolkiah, the sultan of Brunei.
It will be a private museum with objects from the National Archives on loan for its exhibits, according to the Obama Foundation. The move is expected to provide more freedom in how the Obama Foundation endowment is spent and loosen design restrictions on the buildings since they aren't intended to store archival documents.
The question is then: Is it still a presidential library if the stuff’s not there?
Among the artifacts of Obama's time as president is a golf club cover that resembled his dog, Bo, that was a gift from Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan. [Flickr/The Obama White House]
The collection includes five bikes, including two from King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, and a handmade bamboo bicycle from the ambassador from the Philippines. There’s a custom pingpong table with United States and Great Britain decals from former British Prime Minister David Cameron and Northern Ireland MP Samantha Cameron. There's also a reusable grocery bag from French President Nicholas Sarkozy, which seems unlikely to make it into many exhibits.
The most lavish gifts recorded by the U.S. Federal Registrar were never given to Obama. They were given to Michelle Obama.
The two single most expensive gifts were both from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in the year before his death in 2015. Abdullah twice in 2014 gave Michelle Obama a jewelry set, one encrusted with diamonds and emeralds valued at $560,000 and another covered with diamonds and pearls valued at $570,000.
The full list of foreign gifts for 2016, Obama’s last year in office, has not yet been released by the registrar.
The most expensive gift to Obama was also from a king of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz, who succeeded his half-brother Abdullah. It may be difficult to imagine without seeing it, but the gift valued at $522,972 is described by the U.S. State Department as including a handmade bronze sculpture of two rearing horses, one saddled in gold and jewels, along with a large chronometer naming famous ships and a set of 10 golf clubs with a matching leather bag.
There are lessons to learn from viewing the entire collection as a whole, such as the tendency of world leaders to either give a picture of themselves or whomever they’re visiting as a gift.
The full presidential archive will not be available to the public until 2022, a year after the presidential center is to open, because of a hold on releasing records until five years after a president has left office under the Presidential Records Act.
Rob Robinson of the White House Correspondence Office carries a portrait of Abraham Lincoln given to Barack Obama. [Flickr/The Obama White House]
