Imagine this: It is only early in the second year of the Obama Presidency, and already, discussions have begun on where the Obama Presidential Library should be after his time in the White House ends!
Being that he was born and lived in Hawaii for part of his youth, the Hawaii legislature is planning to petition the President to place his Presidential papers in their state.
At the same time, Obama’s adult life was primarily in Chicago, and certainly that is a more central location for his papers, regarding access to scholars.
A good compromise would be to do what happened with President Ford. His papers are in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the University of Michigan, a major scholarly repository and outstanding university where Ford graduated. However, there is also a Ford Presidential Museum in the city which he represented in Congress–Grand Rapids.
So I propose that his presidential library be in Chicago, either at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, or the University of Illinois at Chicago.
At the same time, put a Presidential Museum in Honolulu, as the home of his birth and early childhood.
That way, scholars have easy access, but tourists visiting Hawaii have another major historical site besides the Pearl Harbor Memorial.
This would be a good compromise to be fair to both Hawaii and Illinois!