SPRINGFIELD - As visitors enter the museum, standing there to greet them are Abe, Mary and the three sons who were still alive when Lincoln became president - Willie, Tad and Robert.

The wax figures are so startlingly lifelike, one expects them to speak.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is not officially open, that will be during a dedication ceremony 11 a.m. April 19 with Gov. Rod Blagojevich in attendance, but Thursday it was open to news media.

The museum is designed for self-guided tours, to allow visitors to linger as long as they wish at whichever exhibits grab their attention. However, Dave Blanchette of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency suggested attending the audio/visual presentations "Lincoln's Eyes" and "The Ghosts of the Library" first.

"Lincoln's Eyes" is a 17-minute story of Lincoln's life, with special effects that may be too intense for young children: cannons and guns fire, seats vibrate, lightning and thunder crash.

"Ghosts" is a three-dimensional experience in Holovision, set in a library full of Lincoln memorabilia. Without giving away the surprise ending, suffice it to say the ghostly images flitting from paintings and boxes and books are not the only specters you'll see.

Walk-through scenes include depictions of Lincoln's boyhood log cabin home, his visits to woo Mary Todd, a visit to the White House kitchen with an authentic - and warm to the touch - stove and his struggle with his presidential Cabinet over the Emancipation Proclamation. A series of photos shows how significantly he aged between his election in 1860 and the last photo taken before his death in 1865.

Perhaps the most startling exhibit is the slave auction. The mother, in shackles, cries as she is pulled away from her husband and child, all three sold to different owners and unlikely to ever meet again. It's a scene Lincoln undoubtedly witnessed more than once, said Executive Director Robert Norton Smith, and one that surely had a deep impact on him.

"The brutality of slavery is usually depicted in physical terms," Smith said. The scholars and designers of the Lincoln museum, he said, wanted to depict slavery's impact in an emotional way.

"The slave auction is like a punch in the gut, and it's intended to be," said Bob Rogers, founder and chairman of BRC Imagination Arts, the company that created the exhibits.

Overall, the aim of the museum is to make Lincoln human, allowing visitors to see him as a real man with real struggles, humor, pain and sorrow, rather than simply an icon and well-loved historical figure, Rogers said.

"For us, he changed from a black-and-white, two-dimensional figure on the $5 bill and became a real hero," Rogers said.

Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@;herald-review.com or 421-7982.