The Nation : Library Fund Limits Set

President Reagan signed legislation limiting federal spending for future presidential libraries but exempting the planned $45-million Reagan library from key cost-saving provisions of the new law. Under current statutes, private supporters raise money to establish presidential libraries, which then are turned over to the National Archives to operate. Taxpayers paid $15.7 million last year to operate the libraries of former Presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald R. Ford. For the first time, the new law would require that those who raise money to build the libraries also provide endowments to underwrite operating costs.