Joe Biden should consider building a strictly virtual presidential library. It would cost less than a regular library, be especially appropriate for Biden, and be fully accessible to millions who never could visit a typical monument to former presidents.
Since Biden has yet to get enough financial support for building a library, it would reduce the time he would need to spend contacting donors.
A virtual library could also be a good precedent for future presidents.
As we accumulate more and more of them, physical libraries could require tons of building materials and a great deal of expense, money which might go to more constructive purposes, perhaps even to humanitarian purposes.
A virtual library probably will not appeal to Donald Trump.
In my more jocular moments, I can imagine Trump scrapping his tentative plans and building a large pyramid.
His presidential papers could be stored there and maybe his taxidermied remains could be viewed by long lines of tourists.
Surely space could be found for this pyramid somewhere on the Washington, D.C. Mall.
But Trump is unique, and his successors might prefer to emulate Joe Biden if he pioneers a totally virtual library.
A virtual presidential library for Joe Biden would be especially appropriate, since COVID-19 exploded the number of virtual meetings during his administration.
Many schools and universities converted to virtual classes during this time, with lifelong consequences for students and society in general.
Lots of church services went with an online option.
Rather than venturing into grocery stores, many of us shopped on line, then picked up our orders in designated spots outside the stores.
Even purely social groups, like a book club in which my wife and I participate, converted to virtual meetings.
Although nearly everybody has resumed in-person meetings, the increase in virtual meetings during the Biden administration has had continuing consequences, many of them beneficial: virtual medical appointments, business meetings without polluting and time consuming travel.
In education, there were some bad results, but lesser and more judicious use of virtual meetings could be outstanding.
Relatively few people are able to visit today's presidential libraries in person, and they can't take in several on one trip since they are scattered all around the country.
If Joe Biden elects to establish a virtual library, it will be equally accessible to everyone.
Since education has been one of the purposes of presidential libraries, a virtual Biden library could appropriately have programs to which public school students everywhere in the country could be invited.
It could also make the papers and other documents from the Biden years available for students learning how to do original historical research and for scholars engaged in such research.
We already have plenty of presidential libraries. They include all the presidents from Herbert Hoover on, and offer various levels of on-line services.
But an exclusively virtual library would be able to concentrate all of its resources on these services.
When Queen Elizabeth II died, she had reigned through the presidencies of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmie Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.
Fourteen presidents, one queen!
The world may be able to handle physical memorials for long-lived monarchs, but building them for every president is already approaching absurdity.
That may be one reason Mr. Biden is having trouble raising money.
Joe Biden can nip this absurdity in the bud once and for all.
He should give a strictly virtual presidential library his full consideration.
Paul F. deLespinasse is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Computer Science at Adrian College. Read Professor Paul F. deLespinasse's Reports — More Here.
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