Central Arkansas Library

CENTRAL ARKANSAS LIBRARY SYSTEM

20TH ANNIVERSARY IN THE RIVER MARKET DISTRICT

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CENTRAL ARKANSAS LIBRARY SYSTEM 20TH ANNIVERSARY IN THE RIVER MARKET DISTRICT

THE MAIN EVENT CALS’ RIVER MARKET FLAGSHIP LOCATION TURNS 20

BY DWAIN HEBDA

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t’s 10 a.m. in downtown Little Rock and the Main Library campus of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) is already bustling.

The stately downtown branch gleams in the sun as patrons young and old make their way through the yawning front doors. On the main Former and current executive directors of the Central Arkansas Library System: floor, touch-screen electronic kiosks stand in Bobby Roberts (left) and Nate Coulter. rapt attention, the latest generation of computers that long ago replaced card catalogs.

Around the corner from the circulation desk, a group of entrehis mouth was ‘Y’know I’ve been thinking,’ because there was preneurs hold a brainstorming session in one of the first floor always a new idea. Sometimes you would think they were just meeting spaces. Staffers greet visitors or glide silently among totally crazy, but mostly they weren’t. He was an idea hamster, the stacks with carts full of books and periodicals for reshelving. but it worked.”

Upstairs, a graduate student taps away on a laptop. Earphones A LEGACY OF LIBRARIES in place and surrounded by reference material, she shares a ibraries of various stripes existed in Little Rock as early as smile with a pair of elementary schoolers walked by the hands 1834 sponsored by private citizens, civic groups or busiof their grandmother to the central staircase and the children’s nesses that generally catered to a specific segment of the section one floor up. population. Downtown has had a permanent library presMeanwhile, just a few steps away from the main building, ence since the first Carnegie-funded Little Rock Public Library an elderly man lingers within the Butler Center’s art galleries as his wife browses documents to fill in her genealogy project.

Later, they’ll take the short walk across the parking lot to River Market Books and Gifts for a latte and conversation.

LATINA SHEARD BRANCH MANAGER, CALS SUE COWAN Such scenes as these are played out daily here, by both resiWILLIAMS LIBRARY dents and visitors alike, some of whom are well-acquainted with We’re next door to a middle school. We’re the amenities of Little Rock’s flagship library and some who are jam packed full of programs in the afterdiscovering it, like a new author’s first work. noon hours Monday through Friday.

“Public libraries are crucial if you’re going to do what I think From 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., we’re kind of like a democracy has to do, which is level the playing field,” said an unofficial after-school program and Bobby Roberts who served as CALS director from 1989 to that’s what our community needs with working families, is giving 2016. “Everybody needs to start off with a fair chance and the kids something positive to do after school. libraries do a little sliver of that. We don’t have a lot of places We have a teen advisory board which is a group of kids who basiwhere the field’s level.” cally tell us what to do to keep them happy. We have tons of teen volunteers, too; we’re probably the only branch where 90 percent of Roberts is widely considered the visionary of not only the our Volunteers of the Year are under the age of 18. They really like it.

Main Library branch, but the downtown library campus as a I think the coolest thing is I’ve hired four or five former “library whole by people who had a ringside seat to its development kids” that now work at the library. Their thing was the staff made straight through to the people who oversee the campus today. it look like a cool place and that’s why they wanted to work here. It “Bobby was so full of ideas,” said Linda Bly, who spent 40 left a lasting impression. years in various CALS departments, including administration.

“I often said the scariest thing you could hear coming out of

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opened its doors in 1910. The original public library was constructed at 7th and Louisiana Streets, a building which stood more than 50 years until a new building was constructed on that site in 1964.

By the 1980s, the library system found itself at a crossroads. As the city continued to expand to the west, the cry for branches to serve the new neighborhoods grew louder. However, as each new branch was enthusiastically received -- Terry Library’s opening day in 1990 set a then-record with 3,185 booked checked out and 443 library cards issued -- the Main Library experienced consistent and precipitous decline in circulation.

“We were dying,” Roberts said. “People were just not using (the Main Library). That building -- structurally it was fine, it was a big, strong, heavy building. But it was built in the ‘60s so you couldn’t shift the walls around.

Parking issues and lack of physical space led the CALS board to discuss taking action on the matter as early as 1983, but action was stalled by lack of funds and a cohesive plan forward. The biggest issue was the pittance one-mill cap on library taxes that had been in place since World War II. “If the constitution didn’t change, there wasn’t going to be any new library unless somebody walked in with $15 million and gave it to us.”

So Roberts set out to change the state’s constitution during the 1991 legislative session. The result was a constitutional amendment proposal to increase the millage from one to five with an additional three mill to be had with voter approval. The amendment passed in November 1992.

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO

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ALS wasted no time in leveraging this new resource; the following year voters in Little Rock and Maumelle approved two bond issues totaling $19 million for capital improvements.

Little Rock also voted in a one mill increase for operations and county voters OK’d a 0.6 mill increase for operations and upkeep.

With that solidified, the CALS board could then turn its attention to where the new Main Library branch would be located.

Two camps quickly emerged among CALS board members

SETH BARLOW

Aerial view of the Central Arkansas Library System’s Main Library branch in the River Market District. on the issue.

Anyone who was around Little Rock in the 1980s and 1990s, can understand the dim view of making such a sizable investment in the city’s core. Pre-River Market downtown was a far cry from what it is today; in fact it was arguably the city’s dreariest district particularly near the river. Critics questioned the wisdom of spending millions in a derelict neighborhood of crumbling warehouses where the average citizen was afraid to go.

The opposing camp was equally strident in their view that the Main Library belonged, and therefore should remain, downtown. The fact that the district had become depressed, Bly said, only underscored the argument for staying.

“I was in the ‘stay downtown’ camp because I always felt a strong and vital downtown was necessary for a first-class city,” Bly said. “A public institution is not like a shopping mall where you say, ‘Well it didn’t work out, we didn’t get the business so we’re closing down.’ A public institution investing in an area brings stability and hope to other investors.”

Bill Spivey, bond attorney for CALS during this time, perhaps summed it up best.

Self-check kiosks are complimented by helpful staff.

“I won’t say that was the seminal investment that triggered the redevelopment in the River Market, but many of us who have watched this believe that but for the public investment, that area might not be what it is today.”

FINDINGAHOME

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SOMMELIER & FOCAL BOARD MEMBER I grew up in libraries. My dad was a librarian, my grandmother was president of the local library club. My mom took me to all the after-school programming our local library did. There was never a time when I wasn’t involved in a library.

With CALS, I remember my AP English teacher in high school picked me up one Saturday and took me to Lit Fest and it was great. It was the first time I’d ever seen people reading and celebrating books.

I don’t come into a branch that much, the primary way I interact with my library is actually through my phone, with the Overdrive app. That’s how I get my library books. For me it’s super convenient and I’m not rich, so I can’t go buy every book I want to read. Being able to check it out, read it, listen to it, whatever, for free -- that’s probably the thing I like about the library most.

nce the CALS board decided to keep the Main Library downtown, the next order of business was to find a suitable location.

“The old building we were in was about 80,000 square feet.

We needed to get at least 100,000, maybe 150,000,” Roberts said. “We couldn’t build a building like that in downtown Little Rock for $12 to $13 million. We just couldn’t do it. The next thing was OK, if we’re going to stay down here let’s see if we can find an old building.”

Three buildings would be considered. The first, the former Little Rock Gazette building, Roberts envisioned pairing with the former federal reserve building next door.

“The problem was, libraries are not like building a house. You’ve got to have a load capacity in them that’s probably three times what an office building is,”Roberts said.

“When we got the architects to look at it they said, ‘You can’t do this for $13 million because the floor loads are no good in it.’”

The Terminal Warehouse was next on the list, but it was too big with a pricetag to match. It was then that Roberts took a look at the Fones Building, a decrepit former hardware warehouse at 100 South Rock Street, recommended by Bill Spivey.

“Spivey calls me up, the building was in bankruptcy, full of

Spaces to study and read are located throughout the library.

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CENTRAL ARKANSAS LIBRARY SYSTEM 20TH ANNIVERSARY IN THE RIVER MARKET DISTRICT

other materials, a collection that numbered well over 100,000 items. Employee Jennifer Chilcoat devised a tagging system and corresponding mapping of the shelving configuration at the new location that was remarkable in its efficiency.

“We practiced when the new Fletcher Library opened to get the technique down,” Bly said. “Much smaller building, much smaller collection, but it was an opportunity to try it out and see how it worked and it definitely worked.

“It was so efficient; we had two shifts of people working sixhour shifts and we were able to move the bulk of the collection from the old Main Library to the new library, shelf to shelf, in three and a half days.”

AN INSTANT SUCCESS

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An upstairs view of one of the Butler Center’s art galleries. pigeon crap, the windows knocked out of it. It was a God-awful looking building. I told Bill, I said, ‘I don’t have any interest in that damn building.’”

Once the search cycled through the other options, Roberts reluctantly agreed to what he thought would be a courtesy tour to get Spivey off his back. Instead, Roberts took one look at the massive concrete columns that ran straight through to the top floor and saw the future.

The building had a lot going for it -- proximity to the Interstate, sufficient square footage (156,000 square feet over five floors and a basement) visibility, prospective parking areas and, being in bankruptcy, was an unbelievable bargain.

“We bought it and the building where the Flying Saucer is now and where the (library) parking deck is now, and another building adjacent to Flying Saucer,” Roberts said, still incredulous. “It was all of that for $500,000 which was a bargain. I mean it was a bargain!”

Polk, Stanley and Yeary; Witsell, Evans and Rasco; and Cromwell Firm provided design services and Flynco was the construction company of record. Because of the rock bottom purchase price, CALS had $12.5 million to spend on the renovation, a fortuitous largesse given that $125,000 would be required solely to remove decades of pigeon droppings.

One element of the new building all agreed would quickly become iconic was a frieze encircling the top rim of the exterior featuring the names of famous authors. The list was compiled

via nomination and voting by the general public and spans Aristotle to Dr. Seuss.

Construction elements weren’t the only monumental task facing CALS; as the building neared completion the staff was faced with moving the books, periodicals, historical papers and

JENNIFER CHILCOAT

CALS MAIN LIBRARY BRANCH I’m in my 28th year with CALS. I just think one of the most exciting times of my life, especially in my career, was to open the Main Library for the first time and to see the people walk in. We have people who are very cosmopolitan here and they’ve been to large libraries in large cities, but I don’t think anyone really expected us to have what we showed them when we opened the doors to this building.

That project began an entire culture of ‘We can do this,’ at CALS, of thinking that if we don’t have experience, that’s not our biggest stumbling block. Our biggest stumbling block is if we say we can’t do it.

I think that carried over to a lot of our branches as well.

When people walk in for the first time and you can see that you have exceeded their expectations, it’s just a really incredible, fulfilling experience.

he new Main Library opened Sept. 20, 1997 and was an immediate hit. Circulation jumped by 50 percent the first year, launching the branch into the top spot among all CALS locations, a perch it holds to this day. Staff members noticed surprising trends among the patrons, namely the flood of families, that drove them to spike children’s and family programming options.

Community groups were equally enthusiastic and use of the branch’s meeting space skyrocketed. In June 1998 alone, 120 meetings were held there, a six-fold increase over the Louisiana Street location’s monthly average.

“I just feel so proud of not only the library board and staff but the voters of the CALS service area that they trusted the library to take their money and do something with it. That’s just very fulfilling and very humbling.” Bly said.

“Especially on Opening Day, to stand there and watch people come in and stop and just stare. To have people say, ‘I can’t believe this is in Little Rock,’ and to have the overall acceptance and to prevail over the naysayers that said downtown is dead and nobody goes downtown anymore and you’re going to build that big building and nobody’s gonna use it. It was really a case of if you build it they will come.”

A NEW DAWN

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s the years have progressed, the Main Library has been internally reconfigured several times. Only three floors were finished and/or occupied at the time of the grand opening, but the rest were quickly put into service to keep up with demand. Today, an estimated 60 percent of the population in CALS’ service area hold a library card.

The campus itself would mushroom as well, first with the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, created in 1997 and located

Interior and exterior of the last Fones Brothers Hardware Company location — now the CALS Main Library Branch — that opened in early 1921, and their baseball team.

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a used bookstore and coffee shop operated by CALS. RACHEL TENNIAL Finally, in 2012 voters approved a ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, bond issue to fund construction of the UALR Ron Robinson Theatre, that opened I moved here a few years ago from St. in 2014. The 315-seat multi-purpose Louis. I was a big user of the St. Louis event venue provides programs for Public Library and I loved it. So when I all ages including films, music permoved here one of the important things formances, plays, readings, lectures, for me was get a library card. speakers and children’s activities.

I got my card at the Main Library. That library was beautiful, I loved the way it looked. For me what it says about Little Rock is, Now, 20 years after the new it’s a welcoming place. It was really inviting and the building itself downtown branch opened its doors kind of beckons you in. to the public, Little Rock is a city When I first moved to Little Rock and didn’t know anybody, the seemingly overflowing with libraries library was a really easy space to go into. It made me feel less like from the public to the academic to a stranger in the city, and that was really, really nice. All of the the presidential. None can rival the library’s staff were great. They made the process of getting back Main Library for its role in shaping to something that was familiar -- like reading, like books -- really a city and its people. easy in a time when I just needed some familiarity.

“Libraries have got to do a lot of different things,”said Roberts.“People say, ‘Why did you build a theater?’ in the Arkansas Studies Institute (ASI) just across and I said, ‘Well, why not? There’s no theater like the street. The Butler Center feature an eclectic that around.’ We may not have known exactly collection of maps, photographs and historical what we were going to do with it, but we’ll figure records. It also features several art galleries, colout what to do with it.” lections of papers from Arkansas members of “Same thing with the Butler Center; if you were the U.S. Congress and is home to the Arkansas going to try to justify it just on the number of Sounds Music Series archives. people that use it, it’d be tough compared to a “When I came to the library we had a little branch library. But if you’re going to justify it on manuscript collection, an Arkansas history collecthe fact that it now has probably the best Civil tion,” Roberts said. “We didn’t even staff it all the War photographic collection in the country then time. I’m a historian by training and good public is that worth it? Yeah, it is to me, because all that libraries have always had a big footprint in local cultural side of us is important.” and state history. Goes back to the English, it’s At this, the man who became director of very common. Some of the great regional colCALS before he got his first library card, pauses lections are in public libraries -- Cleveland, the and smiles.

Denver Public Library, Chicago, places like that.

“A library system should serve whatever reading “I thought we ought to have something like and information a community needs. That’s what that. But to have what we have, there’s not one the basic function is. It needs not only the books, like it probably in the country that is that big but the programming to go with it. It needs the compared to the rest of the system.” book clubs. You need to bring in speakers. It’s a In 2001, CALS renovated the 13,000-squarebalancing act to have the really mainstream and foot Cox Creative Center and originally used it not so mainstream.” to house the art galleries that would eventually “You need to get people thinking. I mean, the move to the Butler Center. After that, the buildonly way out of any plight is to think your way ing was turned into River Market Books and Gifts, out of it.” n

MAIN LIBRARY COMING EVENTS THE VIETNAM WAR, A FILM BY KEN BURNS AND LYNN NOVICK

CALS RON ROBINSON THEATER• SATURDAY, SEP 16 • 2 PM• ADULTS A screening of clips from The Vietnam War will be followed by discussion about the Butler Center ‘s Arkansas Vietnam War Project.

HATTIE CARAWAY’S LONG SHADOW: WOMEN IN THE U.S. SENATE

CALS RON ROBINSON THEATER• THURSDAY, SEP 21 • 7 PM• ADULTS Dr. Donald A. Ritchie, Historian Emeritus of the United States Senate, will relate the influence of women on Capitol Hill since Arkansas voted for Hattie Caraway in 1932, making her the first woman to be elected to the Senate.

This lecture is part of the Betsey Wright Distinguished Lecture series.

BOOS & BOOZE KICKOFF

CALS RON ROBINSON THEATER• TUESDAY, SEP 26-0CT 31 • 6 PM ADULTS • $2 The Fall Terror Tuesdays series kicks off with the 2Q1h anniversary edition of I Know What You Did Last Summer and ends with a Halloween bash. Special beer selections will be available each Tuesday.

CAKE WITH CALS

MAIN LIBRARY LEE ROOM • WEDNESDAY, SEP 27 • NOON-2 PM ALL AGES Drop in for cake, share your CALS stories, and view our special anniversary video.

ALLEY PARTY

MAIN LIBRARY CAMPUS • THURSDAY, OCT 19 • 5:30 PM • ALL AGES We’re teaming up with the Downtown Little Rock Partnership for an outdoor celebration.

ROMY & MICHELE’S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION (R)

CALS RON ROBINSON THEATER• THURSDAY, OCT 19, • 7 PM• ADULTS Watch the 20’h anniversary edition of the movie of two dim-witted, inseparable friends hit the road for their ten-year high school reunion and concoct an elaborate lie about their lives in order to impress their classmates.

TEXT TO DONATE Join us in our “$20 for 20” campaign celebrating the 20th Anniversary of both the Main Library campus and the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. Particpation is easy, simply use your mobile device and text “CALS” to 41444.

CONNECT WITH US 100 Rock Street 918-3000 www.cals.org @calibrarysystem @calibrarysystem facebook.com/calibrarysystem River Market Books & Gifts is located inside the Cox Creative Center building.

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CENTRAL ARKANSAS LIBRARY SYSTEM 20TH ANNIVERSARY IN THE RIVER MARKET DISTRICT

ONE-OF-A-KIND BUTLER CENTER AS RARE AS ITS COLLECTION OPENING IN 1997, THE CENTER IS ALSO CELEBRATING 20 YEARS IN THE RIVER MARKET DISTRICT BY DWAIN HEBDA

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s impossible as it is to miss the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, looming across the street from the front door of the Main Library, sheathed in the glass and stone of the Arkansas Studies Institute building, many people have no idea what a rarity the institution represents.

“There’s a woman who did a book for the American Library Association a couple years ago about special collections in public library systems,” said David Stricklin, Butler Center director.

“She did an interview with me and said, ‘I’ve talked to people at 80 library systems and there’s not another public library in the United States that has something that does everything the Butler Center does.’”

“I think of the Arkansas Studies Institute building as a giant public history laboratory. But it’s also the The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies has a large collection of historic photos. reflection of the free public library, a natural extension of what CALS does, having to do with history and culture. But around the country, remarkable,” he said. “The Butler Center was already a great we’re unusual in being an organization of this type that’s part organization when I got here 12 years ago. They had done a of a public library system.” lot of cool things under founding curator Tom W. Dillard. But The Butler Center, opened in 1997, was the brainchild of CALS Bobby Roberts really wanted to expand on his ideas about what then-director Bobby Roberts as a research companion to the the library could do with Arkansas history and art.”

Main Library. Named for its benefactor, the late Richard Butler “This was especially true as we prepared to build the Arkansas Sr., it’s a multi-faceted collection of art and historical documents Studies Institute building and create the partnership with UA that’s more commonly found at land grant universities, if it can Little Rock, which moved its Arkansas-related documents and be found under one roof at all. A repository of all things indigphotographs down here when we opened in 2009. Bobby said, enous to the Natural State, the Butler Center is treasured by ‘I really want to have something spectacular.’” scholars, students, authors and regular citizens alike.

“A whole lot of people find their way into our place who started out in the Main Library or one of the branches,” Stricklin said.

TOM DeBLACK PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, “But there probably are also people who have come into our ARKANSAS TECH UNIVERSITY building who never come into the Main Library to check out a As I get older, I’m constantly struck by how book. We hope when those people start out with us they learn little historical knowledge my students also about all the great things the rest of the system has to offer.” have. And you really don’t know where “Our digital footprint is enormous as well; we have researchyou’re going unless you know where you ers literally around the world using the things that we have.” come from and where you are.

The various components of the collection range from the The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture has been the Arkansas Sounds Music Collection celebrating the state’s musigreatest advancement in the teaching and research of Arkansas cal heritage to collections of Arkansans in U.S. Congress to history in my lifetime. It contains not only a wide range of entries, assembled maps that date back to the 1700s. It’s also home but it also has sections that deal with certain timeframes -- early to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, an online Arkansas history, the Civil War era, things like that. So you can get a brief overview of Arkansas history and then you can get into resource believed to be unique to public library systems nationthe specifics of Arkansas history. Another thing it does, at the end wide, that hosts 1.6 million visits per year. of each article it gives you the author and the sources they used.

Stricklin joined the Butler Center 12 years ago from the I think that’s an incredibly valuable thing for any culture of people ranks of higher education and immediately felt the big ideas to have. It’s one place where they can find so much of their past. at work there.

“I was intrigued by the vision of building something truly

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The Butler Center’s collection is also home to digital records from all 75 Arkansas counties, materials that feed the Butler Center’s reputation as an indispensable resource for genealogists, complete with popular seminars on tracing one’s family tree.

“The annual genealogy workshops are a big deal,” Stricklin said. “We’ll have 250 people attend. And every day there’s somebody doing genealogy research here because of the resources we have.”

“I always tell people, if you’re looking for somebody in your family and our folks can’t find them, they’re in witness protection.”

The collection is meticulously curated by nine professional archivists, five of whom are Certified Archivists, whom Stricklin calls “the CPAs of the archives world.”These individuals not only ensure proper storage, handling and cataloging of materials, but also help the collection grow in a way that appreciates how ordinary items can lend extraordinary depth and overall understanding.

“If somebody said, ‘Hey, I’ll give you a bunch of letters from some really famous person,’ that’s great. That’s wonderful. But we know a lot about that famous person already,” Stricklin said. “If it’s somebody we’ve never heard of, especially if they’re from outside Little Rock, those kinds of things really give you a window into the life of somebody we just wouldn’t have known about otherwise and that’s really exciting, too.”

“We want to have as full a record as possible of the Arkansas experience and you can’t do that if you just have the famous people and the Chamber of Commerce presidents and the bank presidents and people like that. You have to have the guy who ran the bait shop on the river, and if that guy has a scrapbook or photographs, we’re thrilled to have that as well.”

Many of these items not only tell the state’s story, but of individual experiences in a way that’s incredibly powerful.

Stricklin said these items above all hold a place of reverence in the collection.

“It’s really a pleasure when you tell somebody, ‘Here’s what we’re doing. We want your papers or your art or your phonograph recordings’ or whatever it is and they say, ‘Yes, I trust you. I want you to share it with the public and make it available to people,’” he said.

“But even more gratifying are the people who come to us and say, ‘I know what you’re doing. I like what you’re doing. I want you to have these photographs of my parents on their wedding day in 1942 before my dad went off to the war.’That’s been the most gratifying thing of all.” n

CALS SOLIDIFIES CONNECTION TO NEXT GENERATIONS THROUGH PROGRAMMING

BY DWAIN HEBDA

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eyond the Main Library’s books and periodicals, beyond the stacks of reference materials and historical documents at the Butler Center, CALS has developed a roster of programming and touch points that seek to develop the next generation of patrons.

“To me, the library is a hub. It’s a place where people can go and feel safe and know that when they ask a question or ask for help there’s no ulterior motive, that help is just ready and available,” said Lee Ann Hoskyn, director of communications.

“We’re also a place where you can not only get traditional books but you can branch out into other things for free. If you want to dip your toe into something, you can do it here.”

“If you want to learn how to make sushi, you can check out a book on that or you could go to a class or we have online classes that you can take as well. Any way you want to go about learning something, we can help you in the way you learn best.”

Lectures and classes on a variety of topics are offered.

Such diversity of format is one way CALS is working to connect with younger generations. Starting in middle school, individuals tend to stray from the public library and that estrangement can last well into adulthood, particularly among men. Reversing that trend, especially among the Millennial generation, requires new thinking, often made manifest by technology.

“We’re always trying to improve accessibility, especially our services online, be it a downloadable book or putting a book on hold or learning about programming,” Hoskyn said. “We’re in the process of redesigning our website, which should launch the first quarter of 2018. We’re devoting as much time and energy into our digital ‘branch’ as we do to our physical spaces.”

“People want instant access to everything and

while we’re not quite there yet, we’re always working towards a better, quicker way to access information.”

The process of encouraging lifelong learning starts early. Deputy Director Lisa Donovan said CALS’ well-developed and popular children’s programming provides important mooring points as well as developmental benefits.

“We’ve known for a long time about language development,”she said.“We know that the more words a kid has in his vocabulary probably even at age 2, but certainly at age 4 and 5, the more likely he is to be successful in school.”

“But there is another, more recent area of research that speaks to out-of-school activities for school-aged kids and what happens when kids aren’t engaged. There’s a lot of research now about learning loss, particularly in the summer and particularly among poor kids Hands-on crafts and activities are available for patrons of all ages. who lose more ground than kids whose families take vacations, visit museums and libraries said. “What libraries can do, that perhaps a more structured or whose parents just read to them.” learning environment can’t, is provide individual choice and Last year, CALS hosted nearly 7,000 events variety. That’s where programming comes in.” for children and teens, running the gamut CALS has also paid attention to environment and engagement from Weird Science and Kids in the Kitchen as a way to attract and retain older kids and teens. The Main to LEGO Junior Makers Club and Draw Your Library features a teen-only area and some branches around Own Comic Book. The seminal summer readthe city have developed teen advisory boards that get to detering program drew 8,900 participants, offermine what programming focuses on and how it’s delivered. ing 100 different programs system-wide in “We’ve also found that providing teens with volunteer opporany given week. tunities is a popular and worthwhile thing to do,” Donovan Depending on the CALS branch, formal said. “Offering them opportunities to earn volunteer hours reading programming starts as early as infants for their school or club activities is one of the most successand toddlers and continues through teenful things that we do with teens. This is a win-win for everyage years. However, there has traditionally one; teens get their volunteer hours and the library benefits been a precipitous drop-off around seventh from their help.” or eighth grade. To combat this, CALS has introduced several The same strategy of providing choice and engagement initiatives to hold young readers longer. opportunities is proving effective in attracting Millennials to “It is a challenge to figure out what a kid is interested in. It’s one CALS branches and programs. From browsing titles over capthing to teach a kid phonics and reading and math and school puccino at River Market Books and Gifts, the library’s used skills, but it’s another to figure out whether a kid is interested in bookstore and coffee shop, to taking in a movie or lecture at math or science or poetry or art or building things,” Donovan the CALS Ron Robinson Theater, programmatic diversity is one element that’s holding their attention.

“People my age respond to communitybuilding whether it’s the annual book sale or getting involved with FOCAL, our friends of the library group,” Hoskyn said. “We’ve just revived our young professionals group of FOCAL and we’re looking to expand that, making it not just about financial support, but about volunteering and events, too.” n

“IF YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE SUSHI, YOU CAN CHECK OUT A BOOK ON THAT OR YOU COULD GO TO A CLASS OR WE HAVE ONLINE CLASSES THAT YOU CAN TAKE AS WELL. ANY WAY YOU WANT TO GO ABOUT LEARNING SOMETHING, WE CAN HELP YOU IN THE WAY YOU LEARN BEST.”

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The Central Arkansas Library System has many options for family activities.

CALS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:

BOOKS JUST ONE PART OF PUBLIC LIBRARY’S MISSION B

ooks have always held a certain allure to Nate Coulter, that day’s share of 2016’s 2.1 million total visitors, all seekespecially Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Growing ing the printed, spoken, sung, acted or interpreted word. up in small town Arkansas, it was the novel that gave wings “Books are always going to be at the heart of what the to a young man’s imagination. library does, but it’s also about delivering other kinds of “When I was in college, I decided I was not going to go material -- genealogical information, information about back and work in my dad’s retail business on Main Street history, magazines, audio recordings, audio books,”Coulter Nashville. I decided to go to law school,” he said. “I tell said. “It’s more complicated and more expensive to deliver people books had a lot to do with my becoming a lawyer.” all these different sources of information and entertainment Today, as executive director of the to people on DVD, video and other formats, Central Arkansas Library System, Coulter no question about it. But all those kinds of does more than marvel at the power of things are required if we are fulfilling our books, it’s his stock and trade and the very role in the community.” foundation of quality of life in Little Rock.

“I am absolutely convinced that the library “Libraries are always going to be about that evolves and adapts to technology and books,”he said.“Steve Jobs was infamously figures out this mission that I’m talking about quoted as saying he thought books -- how to connect with people and provide would not be around too much longer them what they want -- is going to be as after he invented the iPhone. The data healthy and important as it has ever been.” doesn’t support that. Significant numLibraries can be regarded as a constitutional Nate Coulter, executive bers of people still want printed books.” warehouse, a living repository of the very director of the Central Yet Coulter is the first to tell you that of ideals of freedom of speech, thought and Arkansas Library System the more than 2.7 million items checked creative expression upon which American out last year, printed books represent society is based. Given this, Coulter said, a shrinking percentage of CALS transactions. He’ll just as CALS’ branches serve an integral role as gateways of the quickly tell you it’s a testament to the local public library First Amendment. system to have adapted so many alternative forms of media.

“A library is public service. It’s got an egalitarian mis“People might not be reading the kinds of books that sion, clearly. It serves everybody, it doesn’t matter what you or I would recommend, but people are going to keep your station in life is,” he said. “Democracy works when you reading,” he said. “Younger people are going to read digital have institutions like the public library that make people only, some people are going to read both and some people better informed in theory and better participants in their are only going to read printed books. This is always going self-governance. But it also has to engage people in the to be at the heart of what the library does.” community; it has to go find what things people need and Roughly one half of the people in CALS’ service area provide a place for people to address those needs.” hold a library card. Last year, 297 CALS employees across all Access is key, Coulter said, adding for as grand a place branches answered an average of 3,600 questions posed by as the Main Library is, it is lacking without the participation

BY DWAIN HEBDA

and strength of CALS’ 13 branches.

“I think it’s a great combination to say yes, let’s have a flagship place downtown that has the things that have developed around it, not just one space but a campus,” he said. “It’s nice to have this big, fabulous facility down here. It’s good for the city. It’s good for the library system.”

“While doing that, let’s also remember that a lot of people want a neighborhood library, so let’s build libraries all over the city, fine spaces, architectural award-winning spaces, spaces that make people want to show up. Of the things that I’m proudest about this system, it’s that we have these branches where people can get to the library, sometimes on foot, and they can participate in the process the same as anyone across town or across the state if you’re talking about online resources.”

Of the future of CALS, Coulter predicted the same ideals of public space, easy access and reliable curation of various types of information will continue to serve as the organization’s guiding lights. But asked how services will be delivered and in what format, he only shakes his head in wonder.

“What that looks like 10 years from now, 20 years from now, is hard to say,” he said. “There may be smaller collections because everything is going to be digitized. I was reading the other day that President Obama’s library at the University of Chicago is going to have no paper archive materials of the sort that we have at the Butler Center and in the Clinton Presidential Library. So that’s one sign.”

“But I also read an interesting piece the other day that proposed the 16th century Gutenberg press had a bigger impact on society than the iPhone in terms of what it had done to liberate people’s minds and help them spread information in ways that theretofore they couldn’t. So, I still think libraries are relevant and will be relevant in circulating materials, printed or otherwise, 50 or 100 years from now. It’s just a central part of our society.” n

CENTRAL ARKANSAS LIBRARY SYSTEM 20TH ANNIVERSARY IN THE RIVER MARKET DISTRICT 8

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