After months of renovation, the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library unveiled the updated fourth floor exhibit on March 7, showcasing the 36th president’s life and time in office. Lara Hall, the museum curator, worked with a team for two years, making the space modern and accessible. The Daily Texan sat down with Hall to discuss the exhibit’s changes as well as how LBJ’s legacy will continue to be prevalent for future generations. 

The Daily Texan: What are some of the modern features that have been installed now in the exhibit?

Lara Hall: One of the coolest interactives we have is the Voices of the Archive, it invites our visitors to take a letter, one of the archival red boxes, and place it on a table (and the) letter comes to life. I really like it because it helps show sort of the role that everyday people had in LBJ’s administration.

DT: What are some of the things that you’ve changed to make things a bit more accessible?

LH: We’ve added in Spanish translations on some of our panels to help visitors from different countries better access the information. We have also lowered a lot of our text panels so that our younger visitors can access them. We’ve just tried to make it more engaging so people can find information in ways that kind of speak to them, whether it’s through video, whether it’s through reading, whether it’s through hearing phone conversation. 

DT: What was the aim of modernizing this exhibit?

LH: It had been about a decade since we’d updated our exhibits last, and scholarship changes, museum practices change, and so we started redoing them to update and reflect modern scholarship and museum practices.

DT: How are these topics still prevalent today?

LH: So much of what was passed as part of the Great Society are addressing issues that we still (face). You see that in the exhibit, it addresses poverty, it addresses civil rights issues, and those are things that we still think about and are grappling with as a society.

DT: What do you hope people take away from (the exhibit)?

LH:  I hope they take away that we all play a role in American democracy, and I hope it inspires them to play a more active role.