The library opened in and houses the repository of presidential records from the Reagan administration. The library contains millions of documents, photographs, films and tapes. It also contains memorabilia and a permanent exhibit of Ronald Reagan's life.
Glenn Campbell, director of the Hoover Institution , a conservative think tank much used by Reagan for policy positions. Campbell contacted Ronald Reagan in February to say that the Hoover Institution was willing to host the Reagan Library at their headquarters on the campus of Stanford University in Northern California.
The advantage held by Hoover was that Reagan was an honorary fellow, and Hoover already housed Reagan's papers from his campaign for and transition to governor of California. Ronald and Nancy Reagan participated in occasional informal discussions about the library plans with Campbell and Stanford President Donald Kennedy through During this time, a proposal to place the Richard Nixon Presidential Library on campus at Duke University in North Carolina was under attack by Duke faculty and the National Archives and Records Administration NARA who were all worried that the Richard Nixon Foundation would not allow scholarly access to archives, which they judged was the primary purpose of a presidential library.
The Duke faculty were also firmly against having a museum serve as a memorial to Nixon who had left office in disgrace. This public controversy shaped the discussions about a Reagan Library at Stanford. Reagan formally accepted the Hoover Institution invitation in January The plans included three components: an archival library for researchers, a museum for the general public, and a "Center for Public Affairs" which would serve as a think tank to promote the ideas of the Reagan Foundation.
In June , Kennedy called for Stanford faculty to express their opinions through the Rosse Committee, to report by October. This polarized response was compared in the press to the Nixon Foundation's difficulties at Duke. A recurring point of contention was the Center for Public Affairs; some critics announced they would only approve the project if the think tank was removed or relocated offsite.
