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.“Bill Gates 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.” ■
CENTRAL ARKANSAS LIBRARY SYSTEM 20TH ANNIVERSARY IN THE RIVER MARKET DISTRICT 8 32
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