Anyone may use the Ford Library's research collections. Scholars, mass media production staff, teachers, journalists, schoolchildren, attorneys, current government officials, and interested citizens are typical users by email, mail, and telephone. On-site users are typically less diverse, but all are welcome. Most on-site are faculty and students pursuing academic projects. On-site researchers under the age of 14 must be accompanied by an adult researcher.

The Ford Library in Ann Arbor is open Monday through Friday excluding Federal holidays, from 8:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. View a list of Federal Holidays and Research Room Closings here.

Research can be conducted by scheduled appointment only. Appointments can be made by contacting the Library staff at ford.library@nara.gov. The general public may view the small exhibit space in the lobby anytime during normal business hours.  

There is a separate information page for visiting the Museum in Grand Rapids.

For extensive information on lodging, transportation, events, attractions, and restaurants, please visit Destination Ann Arbor's website. Lodging with a 48105 zip code is in closest proximity to the Library.

The University of Michigan currently offers long-term on-campus accommodations during the summer months (dates depending on the academic calendar).  For more information about guest housing, please contact the University of Michigan's Conference Services.

Email, call, or write to the Ford Library to ask if we have material on your topic. We will consult our holdings and give you an assessment of the quantity, quality, and accessibility. We may also email you a detailed search report from PRESNET, our collection description database. At that time you can decide if you would like to schedule an appointment for a research visit, place a reproduction order, or hire a researcher.  (See "How can I do research by mail?" below for more information on hiring a researcher).

Also, you may want to browse the Library’s finding aids to identify other potentially useful collections. Each finding aid gives information about the creation of the collection, types of documents and their arrangement, date span, completeness, and an overview of subject content. Most finding aids conclude with a box-by-box list of all folder titles. 

Once you have scheduled a research visit, an archivist will contact you about the orientation process and the research room policies and procedures. At any stage of the research process, please do not hesitate to ask an archivist for help when you have questions.

PRESNET is an in-house database that Ford Library staff can search and then email the results to researchers in a “.txt” file. It facilitates subject/topical access to over 95 percent of the Library's archivally processed materials by generating lists of folders (with estimates of the number of pages in each). 

The PRESNET database can be searched by either free-text searching of folder titles and other finding aid text or through the use of a controlled vocabulary of about 1,400 subject index terms. Materials that are not yet open for research, and some newly opened material are not described in PRESNET.

More information on PRESNET and a sample search report can be found here. 

No. The majority of domestic policy and political affairs materials are processed and open to research. Many important defense and international affairs collections also are open. Unfortunately, some collections are wholly or partly closed due to national security restrictions, deed of gift restrictions, or a processing backlog. The finding aids provide a list of open or partially open collections. 

Open collections may have some individual items that are temporarily restricted from public use. Pink withdrawal sheets in the collections identify these withdrawn items and mark their file locations. Most closed items are national security classified or of such a nature that their release would be an unwarranted invasion of an individual's privacy. The National Archives and Records Administration temporarily restricts these and a few other categories of historical material regardless of source. Researchers may use the "Mandatory Declassification Review" program to seek access to items closed as national security classified.

Occasional other restrictions derive from specific agreements between the library and those who have donated materials.  Researchers may formally appeal the restriction of items closed for privacy or other reasons unrelated to national security. More information is available here. 

The Freedom of Information Act does not apply to donated historical materials, including the papers donated by Gerald Ford. The act does apply to a few groups of federal records placed at the Library, and these are clearly identified in the finding aids.

Yes. The finding aids will list some individual folders in processed collections as “closed.”  These folders will require advance consultation with an archivist because Library staff have not yet completed review for privacy, national security, or other restrictable information. You may submit selected folders to the library's review for access queue, but it may take the library staff some time to prepare these folders for research.

No. The Library will only release files it has archivally processed, i.e. arranged, and described.

The Library’s "Mandatory Declassification Review" (MDR) program allows researchers to seek declassification of specific items. We provide a special form for making the request. The requested items must be individually identified by the requester and readily locatable by an archivist. Typically, but not always, the requester draws upon citation information found on pink withdrawal notices that we have prepared during archival processing.

Once received, the Library will forward the MDR request to the National Archives’  National Declassification Center (NDC) for review. Once the review is completed, the Library will contact the requested and provide copies of any declassified items. Unfortunately, this is a long process. 

In addition to using the Ford Library’s Research page to locate finding aids, we recommend that you contact the Library to request PRESNET search reports. 

Both the finding aids and the PRESNET search reports will help you locate any digitized material or identify folders that you want to have reproduced.

You may wish to find and hire a local research assistant. You could, for example, email a "job proposal" to the University of Michigan or Eastern Michigan University graduate students in History, Political Science, or American Studies programs. The library cannot become involved in any aspect of recruiting, evaluating, hiring, instructing, or paying research assistants.

The National Archives sets standard fees for reproduction services. For information about how to order  textual and audiovisual reproductions, visit  Reproduction Fees and Policy.

For reproduction orders of textual materials, this means that we will photocopy the entire contents of folders that have been selected by the researcher from our finding aids, PRESNET reports, or reference guidance. We also will photocopy an individual item that we can easily find and readily recognize.

Remote researchers face obvious difficulty in locating and selecting the textual items to be copied. We will be happy to provide consultation about files, via email or telephone, but ultimately the researcher is the only person who can effectively locate and select the files to be reproduced. Library staff will conduct limited searches for specific items, but they will not presume to select the "good" items interfiled with related items.

The Presidential Paperwork Log (add link to finding aid) and the Presidential Handwriting File (add link to finding aid) show the large volume of paperwork that President Ford handled. Most of President Ford's annotations are brief records of query, decision, acknowledgement, or instruction. 

Longer passages in his handwriting are few and scattered. In addition, documents stamped "The President Has Seen" may be found scattered in many collections, especially the White House Central Files' Subject File . Many senior advisers' files have folders reserved for their memorandums to the President.

President Ford relied extensively on meetings with a wide range of advisers to receive and gauge their views, communicate his own, and explore issues. The records of the President's national security and foreign relations meetings are extensive. These are found mostly in the National Security Adviser's Memoranda of Conversations subcollection

The library has only sporadic and scattered notes and minutes from Presidential meetings on domestic and political affairs. They are found especially in the collections of John Carlson, Kenneth Cole, James Connor, John Marsh, Ron Nessen, Michael Raoul-Duval (both Files and Papers), J. W. "Bill" Roberts, Margita White, and Robert Wolthuis. Minutes of Cabinet meetings and National Security Council meetings are on our website.

Many Ford Library donors have given their copyright in all of their unpublished writings in National Archives collections to the United States of America through their deed of gift. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to remain with them. Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public domain.  

For copyright information about a specific collection, please read the copyright statement in the collection overview section of its finding aid or contact a Ford Library staff member.

Persons wishing to publish any unpublished writings included in the holdings of the library should obtain permission from the copyright holder. Permission to reproduce copyrighted materials in the library's still photograph, audiotape, videotape, motion picture, and other special format collections must also be obtained from the copyright holder.

If the name of a copyright holder is known to the Library, it will be furnished upon request. Some individuals who have given their materials to the Library  have also donated their copyrights to the material.

The copyright law provides for "fair use" of copyrighted materials without the permission of the copyright holder. Fair use encompasses scholarship and research, although the extent of such use is bounded by limitations on quotation and reproduction.

As part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Ford Library does not license its content, or grant exclusive or non-exclusive publication privileges or usage rights to records.

More information about copyright and publicity rights can be found in the following document: Copyright and Use of Archival Materials in the Presidential Libraries.  

Researchers with specific copyright questions should seek legal guidance. Please note that Federal employees are not authorized to provide such guidance.

The Ford Library website offers bibliographies of core works about Gerald Ford and Betty Ford. In addition, the library maintains a modest, non-circulating collection of printed works that include:

  • Most Congressional hearings and reports, and some agency annual reports, 1974-1976. (Use our Congressional Information Service's abstracts and indexes to find hearings and reports on your topic. Use photocopied tables of contents, kept in the research room and arranged by Congressional committee, to browse our set of hearings.).
  • A small collection of scholarly and popular works in history, political science, and current affairs; student papers; standard reference works; and U. S. Government publications. (Use our card catalog or request Pro-Cite database searches to locate this material).
  • Microfilm of the Grand Rapids Press, New York Times, Newsweek, and Time; and hard copies of the National Journal.
  • A reference file (known internally as the “Vertical File” of miscellaneous magazine and newspaper articles, and occasional journal articles, conference papers, document photocopies, and other items is available in the research room.
  • Gerald Ford's 1949-1973 personal collection of Republican Party publications, congressional and other government publications, and comparable material. See the Printed Material series of the Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers for publication titles.

Selected bibliographies can be generated from our Pro-Cite database and can be sent to researchers by email or mail. This small database primarily serves very basic needs of undergraduate researchers, but others may find it useful as well.

Two research grant programs are available to support research in the holdings of the Gerald R. Ford Library.  For more information, please visit Research Grants and Award Programs.

Citations should identify items with enough specificity that they can be retrieved easily. Most citations for manuscript items will contain these elements:

Type of document; names of sender and recipient, or title of document; date; folder title or Central File code; box number; collection title; Gerald R. Ford Library.

Examples:

Memo, Marsh to Cannon, 14 July 1975, folder: Drug Task Force, box 10, James Cannon Papers, Gerald R. Ford Library.

Briefing paper, President's meeting with Ambassador Smith, 22 March 1976, folder: FO 3-1 Executive, White House Central Files, Gerald R. Ford Library.

When audiovisual material from Library collections is used, please credit the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.