Before the doors of President Barack Obama's library open on Chicago's South Side, truckloads of White House archives will be shipped to a former furniture store in the northwest suburbs.

A massive volume of paperwork, electronic data and artifacts will find a temporary home at the old Plunkett Home Furnishings store in Hoffman Estates, Ill. As many as 120 employees will be brought in by the National Archives and Records Administration to sort through the material, which ultimately will be part of the Obama Presidential Center.

The National Archives employees will organize, digitize and preserve the contents of what is sometimes called the "president's attic," said John Laster, who directs the Presidential Materials Division at the agency and has toured the Hoffman Estates site.