I made a declaration today while driving home from church.

The next time we’re in Dallas, I told my wife, I want to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

For that matter, the next time we get to College Station, I want to see the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

What’s more, I now intend to see all the presidential libraries before I check out — even those that aren’t yet built.

Some folks want to see all the national parks (I’m one of them, too), or visit all 50 states (I’ve set foot in 47 of ’em), or ride every roller coaster in the country (I’ll pass on that one, thank you very much).

Presidential libraries offer up a fascinating view of history — from the perspective of the individual whose history is being examined.

I did a quick count of the libraries I’ve already seen: The Lyndon Johnson library in Austin, the Herbert Hoover library in West Branch, Iowa, the (Jimmy) Carter Center in Atlanta. That’s it.

Without question, of the three presidential libraries I’ve visited, the most compelling one was — get ready for this — the Hoover library. Why?

Well, I knew about the Great Depression occurring on President Hoover’s watch. I knew that he lost re-election in a landslide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.

What I didn’t know when I visited the library with my wife and then-infant son in 1973 was that President Hoover was a tremendous humanitarian. He helped feed much of Europe after World War I. President Woodrow Wilson named him as head of the U.S. Food Administration after the United States entered the conflict in 1917.

The Hoover library, which isn’t a pretentious site, devotes a tremendous amount of space to explaining his humanitarian work and, quite naturally, doesn’t tell the visitor all that much about the Great Depression.

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My interest in the George W. Bush library is rather personal. I didn’t vote for him in 2000 or 2004, or for Texas governor in 1994, for that matter. However, I have some personal affection for the 43rd president.

I was privileged to have three conversations with him, starting in 1988, when he and I rode an elevator together in New Orleans during the Republican National Convention that nominated his father to run for president. I said, “You’re George W. Bush, yes?” He nodded. He asked me my name. I told him and said I was the editorial page editor for the Beaumont Enterprise. “Oh, I’ve heard of you,” he said.

Sure thing, George. He hadn’t yet been elected to any public office, but he was a natural politician.

I met him seven years later, after moving to Amarillo. I was granted a 90-minute interview with him in the governor’s office at the State Capitol Building in Austin. The meeting was supposed to last 45 minutes. I found him to be charming, engaging, funny — and smart. He had been governor just a few months during the first half of 1995 and I found him to be a quick study on Texas government and public policy.

We met again three years later as he ran for re-election. He remembered our previous meeting in 1995 and we kind of caught up on some things we discussed in Austin.

It’s a safe bet I’ll get to his library on the Southern Methodist University campus. I might make the visit on our next trip to the Metroplex, which is certain to happen soon, thanks to the presence of our granddaughter, Emma.

I doubt I’ll see anything there that details the mistakes he made during his two presidential terms, such as the Iraq War and the economic free fall. Then again the LBJ library doesn’t deal too much with the intense criticism the president got over his Vietnam War policy, nor does the Carter Center tell you much about the “malaise” he implied gripped the nation during his four years in office.

But I do want to see W’s version of his presidential history and perhaps judge it against what I understand about it.