Every stillness every day will make movement more tolerable. For more information on bob tvs recent visit to Santa Barbara and the many other destinations on tower cities tour go to cspan. Org citiestour. Now a panel on the life and career of recent lid retired librarian of congress, james billington. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon. Please take your seats. Humbled to be next to any understanding is were live on cspan, so behave yourselves. Welcome to valentines day a bit early. Im jane harmon, the president and ceo of the Wilson Center and i cant imagine what the Wilson Center would look like today if nobody had been smart enough to put Jim Billington in charge. [applause] we have no Cannon Institute no wilson quarterly, two projects at the heart of what we do. 0 who knows how many friends and how much wisdom would we would have missed out on. Jim played a special role in my own education, my russian education. We crossed paths while i was in moscow on a congressional delegation, and he took us all on a tour of the kremlin. Priceless. Jim, your command of russia, its history and culture shows up everyone here. You have forgotten more than any of us knows. Lucky for us you wrote it all down and published it with the Wilson Center press. Every dear friend in the room today can back me up on just how impressive you are. And there are many dear friends here. Let me just recognize a few in particular. Some of whom are participating in the conversation to follow. Former u. S. Ambassador to russia, jim collins. Gregorian, the one and only gregorian, president of the for sure, forever, president of the Carnegie Corporation. Ishmael geldon, director of the library of alexandria, and theyre joining us to celebrate your service. Were also luck you to be joined by latvian ambassador to the United States, acting librarian of congress, david, and jane, the librarys director of outreach and a delegate to our board. I havent seen grace there she is. Hi, grace. Her family has done so much to shape this institution, and guy anna davisspencer who has been such a friend to our work. Gatherings like this remind me just what an impact the center has. With friends and alumni around the globe, including hundreds in russia and ukraine even now, we put the best scholars and the moe brilliant staff to work on the most important issues. We learned that from you, jim. You always put scholarship at the heart of our work. No one who knows you would be surprised. Some may already know this but jim and his daughter, susan, sitting right here, were the first fatherdaughter pair to rhodes scholarships. You can applaud for that. Throughout your service here, at the open World Leadership Center and at the library of congress, you have shown Exceptional Service to the ideal woodrow wilson, and we all share knowledge in the public service. Its an honor to celebrate with you to celebrate that today with so many extraordinary individuals, including your own family, right in the front row, marjorie, your amazing marjorie, tom, susan, katie, sarah, and others, who were not able to join us here. And i hope youre as proud as we are of what the Wilson Center has been able to build on a foundation that you laid down. Thanks for years of dear friendship with me and my late husband, sydney, and so many in this room and congratulations phone example you set for us all of. Its now my delight to welcome matt back 0 to america and the Wilson Center. In case you have never seen him before he is hiding under a beard and is the director of the Cannon Institute and were very proud he is here and he will say a few words and i also have to recognize blair ruble, the longstanding director or the Cannon Institute and now our Vice President for programs. So please welcome matt home. [applause] tanks, jane. I seem to recall there was this line in the Job Description for director of the Cannon Institute that said something about up to 25 of your time travel. It turns out russia and ukraine are pretty far away, and other important places like china are even farther. Thank you for the welcome, jane. I just want to put itself simply, the crowd in this room, both the quantity and the quality, and in particular the quality of the people right up here on the podium, are testament to this man, Jim Billington so just a round of applause for all of you. [applause] this is really an incredible gathering, and im enormousry privileged and intimidated to be sitting in the middle. So if i slide under the table youll know why. One of the priorities i had when i joined the Cannon Institute as its new director was to meet with dr. Billington. That was an experience that ill always remember. I learned a tremendous amount about the founding of the institute, the personalities, unique characters, all who were involved, the war stories about its early days and the Wilson Center the main thing i took away was his description of the urgent need and the complex challenge of creating such other center for advanced russian studies in the nations capitol at the height of the cold war. It meant a great deal too hear first hand from one of the cofounder of the kenyan institute it was designed to foster the development of general understanding about thensoviet russia as well as the development oft experts grounded in broad and deep knowledge about the region. The idea was to arrest and reverse a decline in americas capacity to understand that part of the world. Now, that reminds me of some research i did recently while far away from washington, dc. I was doing a fellowship another nato and this gave me a chance to resource George Kennans thinking for the need for the capacity for the United States to understand russia. The cofounded the Kennan Institute and he wrote that the United States government should see our public is educated to the realitied of the russian situation, he cautioned there is nothing as dangerous as terrifying as the unknown. And so he called for the study of russia with courage, detachment, and objectivity, these i believe are the values upon which during bigtop, ambassador kennan and dr. Starr founds the Kennan Institute and i like to believe theyre the values we observe and uphold to this day. I think many in this room are aware of the challenge of this moment. The precip douse decline in our governments support for this type of scholarship now and the resultings paucity of experts in this region in policymake are circled. So i think its especially timely for us to gather to celebrate a man who, as the panels title suggests, has made a career of advancing not only knowledge but knowledge and public service. I know that we at the Kennan Institute bear that legacy and that mission firmedly in mind as our guiding star. I want to thank jim for taking the time to meet with a newly minted kennan director that day a couple of years ago to show him what is possible eventually with ones career. If one has the insight and the courage that Jim Billington has brought to bear. I want to thank the billington family, his wife, marjorie, daughter susan and son thomas. I want to thank grace kennan for joining us and thank the distinguish Evidence Panel which ill have the privilege of moderating today. With the panelists permission i will simply proceed in the order in which i have the bios, offer a brief introduction, i think that these are people whose backgrounds speak for themselves. Well begin with ishmael geldon, the founding director of the new library of alexandria inaugurated in 2002. He chairs the board of directors for the librarys affiliated research and institutions and adviseds the egyptian on the Cultural Sciences and museums and held many Important International positions including vicepresident of the world bank. He is a chair and member of many advisory committees for Academic Research and Scientific International institutions and has been involved in many Important International organizations, has published over 100 books and mono graphs and over 500 papers on variety of topics. What is not mentioned in the bioills that the library was first established entirely of works written by mr. Geldin. He has hosted a Cultural Program on television in egypt, and developed a scientific Television Series in arabic and english, his bachelor of science is from Cairo University and his masters degree and ph. D from Harvard University, and he has received 34 honorary doctorate chez understand al come poleses the wall paper of the library. Thank you. Thank you, matthew. Ladies and gentlemen, im delight told be with you today to honor an amazing individual. James billington, and to do so in the presence of his lovely wife and his children as well as so many friends. Now, how do you tack the measure take the measure of the man in by the accomplishments and also by the love he has generated among family, friends and colleagues. I believe i qualify as a friend and qaasim speak volumes about my love for jim but would like to focus my remarks on Jim Billington the librarian of congress and his legacy. More precisely i will speak of one aspect of the legacy, the international aspect, and even more specific live of two projected he initiated and with which i have been personally involved. First i want to note he is undoubtedly a towerrerring intellect, a great teacher and a from teaching history at harvard and princeton, he went on to head the fulbright program, the woodrow wilsoner in for scholars the library of congress, and as a scholar, he and i used to discuss many things from the centerd mission to the lincolns gettysburg address and the special music we find in it. I was touched and impressed he was able to recall from memorur ago is mail, and his books, including fire in the hearts of men, and many othersers also well as his russian culture programs were an inspiration, but i leave others to speak on these facets of his eenormously productive career. A few things he did and that a great impact on me starting from before i became the librarian of alexandria in 2001. I ham a lifelong bibliophile and used to get nightmares at the idea of so many becomes published on acidic paper falling into dust around the world, and jim billing to be launched a mass deacidification program in 2001 which spannedded the life responsible of 12 million manuscript shot is ss and private new selection Storage Facilities and opened that in 2002 and four million items are now available there during his tenure at the lie library of congress he doubled the side of analog collections and also pioneered many of the digittality programs and its international initiatives. Now, Jim Billington did not rely on increased government funding. Indeed he did all he did while presiding over a 30 reduction in staff. But jim was truly a fundraiser extraordinaire. Recall his creation of the Madison Council this, cull door for Motion Pictures and the American Music legacy program. But all that is but a small part of his enormous legacy. More than a skilledded a maror he was a true visionary. He comes from the library of congress, from the analog to digital age, from the primary library in the u. S. A. To the primary library in the world. Much of the terms of numbers of acquisitions where maybe the British Library may still he a light edge but also in leadership of the content and quality of librarianship. He kept it at the fortfront as the forefront thats standard bearer for the world, by designing new standards for the digital age. So, he assured the library of congress produced the resource, description, and access to ida in 2010 and the standard for the digital age and starting in 2011, the design of frame started, model for description should become the new standard for the whole world in the next year or two. Jim billington cooked with the ict revolution differently than most people. He saw for the need to go beyond near live putting material online. And addressed the need to link the various parts in such a way that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Yes, he did. For the understood before anyone else it was not just about the quantity of material that can be digitized and put out on the web for the Search Engines of the world, held by google to find snip. S here and there of material. Rather, this has is going to happen anyway but what how on institution like the library of Congress Present these materials to the public. Jim was the first to recognize this with the american Memory Program and the first to take this into an International Partnership with the World Digital Library program. Now, i know many may think that Jim Billington would be a tech knowphone, given his age and love of books but he has a profound understand offering the real impacts of the i. T. Revel luigs that so many of the tech knowphiles who were enamored by the gage jetts that every more powerful computer and faster communication would bring. Her understood it opened up avenue ford new kind of communication about our Cultural Heritage and our common humanity. He in other words that ticking a person into a roomful of disorganize it books, files, pictures, bricabrac would be useless. That person may suddenly fall upon an interesting picture or get ene enamarred by the title of a book but serving up the information to the public is not vocation of a librarian or the as separation of an intellectual. Schreck different, creation, and presentation were needed. As early also 1990 jim was the first to understand that the simple digitizeddation of material and putting on the internet would be the equivalent of bringing a roomful of discoringed room of pictures and books and bricabrac to the persons hands delivered loud the computer, but bringing the collection to interlinked to each person on the internet would be something defendant. Digital creation is about the selection, preservation, collection and archiving of the Digital Assets and establishes and adds value to the repositories of the digital data for present and future use. This is a work that is accomplished by librarians, historians and scholars. But its the design of the links and the explanations provided by the curators wars also targeted to an audience that covers the k through 12 range of the next generation and what was simply a selection of data became an enormously valuable learning tool. Thats one of the signature programs of the library of congress which spawned the american me. Riff program, which according to jim had to be understood by a tenyearold. The american Memory Program launched in 1990 was not only a Pioneering Program but enormous put online and curated fashion more than 20 million americans look at the collections of the libraries and other research institutions. Jim also championed the librarys many other Internet Services beyond the american Memory Program, there is the congressional database, online card catted log, catalogue, thest copyright office, americas library, and all of that is really used. In 2013 i notice it the library had recorded 84 million visits and 590 million page views. In fact i got to know jim through the american Memory Program when i was Vice President of the world bank and i was fascinated to learn mow about the program, and from that context i was fascinated by the man, the intellectual and the historian. And the with doom he possessed. Ladies and gentlemen the wisdom he polled. I am overwhelmed by the amount of dot to generated bet data organized becomes information and information when explained becomes knowledge. But humanity needs more than knowledge. We need wisdom. Wisdom is a different quality. It is not an attribute of youth. The young can be intelligent, brilliant, even generouses geniuses but not wisdom. When we save that young man is wise beyond his years, why . Because we know the quality that comes from experience and reflection. Imagine the intellect with the essence of a life well lived where knowledge is acquired, and wisdom to the tasks he chose to pursue, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to turn to two programs i had the police of working close live with jim on the initiation and their continuation to this day. The world digital lie area and the International Summit of the book. The World Digital Library is an Ambitious Program launched by jim, supported by unesco and brought together 181 libraries from 81 countries that foe kentuckyed on quality, not qu