According to the Arkansas News Bureau, Bill Clinton was the only former president to take part in Thursday's first of issue ceremonies for the Presidential Libraries stamp.

Clinton said a new U.S. postage stamp celebrating 50 years of presidential libraries will draw attention to institutions that are cornerstones of an open society.

Apparently it was a Little Rock man, Ron Robinson, who suggested the stamp to honor the libraries. Robinson is one of the members of the postal service's citizen advisory committee.

The 1955 Presidential Libraries Act allowed presidents to donate materials to the government, though they were not required to turn over their records. In 1978, Congress made mandatory the collection of all presidential papers by the National Archives.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was a stamp collector (see post below), came up with the idea of a presidential library. Clinton's downtown Little Rock library, dedicated last November, is the newest in the system. The Richard Nixon library in Yorba Linda, Calif., is to become part of the federal system next year.

For more on Clinton's remarks, click here.