William J. Clinton Presidential Library

The William J. Clinton Presidential Library opened in 2004 in Little Rock, Arkansas, the capital of the state Clinton governed before reaching the White House. Its long glass-and-steel structure juts out over the bank of the Arkansas River, cantilevered toward the water — a deliberate echo of Clinton's campaign promise to build "a bridge to the twenty-first century." The building anchors a revitalized riverfront district in his home city.

The collections are the largest of any presidential library to that point, a reflection of the explosion of records and the dawn of the digital age in the 1990s. They document a presidency of economic boom and budget surpluses, the North American Free Trade Agreement, welfare reform, and the fights over health care, alongside the impeachment that grew out of the Monica Lewinsky scandal — which the museum addresses directly in an exhibit on "The Fight for Power."

The museum recreates the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room at full scale and displays gifts of state, campaign memorabilia, and the saxophone that became a symbol of Clinton's style. As with other libraries, it pairs the federal archive with a school of public service, the Clinton School at the University of Arkansas, extending the institution beyond a record of the past.