Tag Archives: Bobby Roberts

CALS Launches Music Festival

Posted on by

Earlier this month, the Central Arkansas Library System announced plans to create an annual music festival featuring Arkansas music and Arkansas artists. The tentative launch for the festival, which would last a couple of days, would be in the fall of 2012.

This would be a project of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.  CALS has started advertising for someone to be the coordinator.  The intention is that the music festival would eventually be self-sufficient, though CALS would make a loan for start-up money.

CALS Executive Director Bobby Roberts told Arkansas Business, “If I were going to pick some area where Arkansas has excelled it is in music,” Roberts said. “It’s just a great heritage.” He cited musicians and composers such as Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty and William Grant Still. “I’d like to see us do all kinds of music,” Roberts said, from classical to country to rock to gospel.

 

As this develops, the LR Culture Vulture will be sure to follow this exciting news.

CALS is a Library Star!

Posted on by

The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) has been listed as a Star Library in the Library Journal Index of Public Library Service. The index measures the service levels of the nation’s 7,153 public libraries, based on circulation, visits, Internet use, and program attendance. CALS, with a total score of 773, was one of only twenty Southern libraries to receive the Star recognition.

Rankings were based on 2009 data released by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in July, 2011. CALS is listed twenty-fifth out of 107 libraries that fall within an expenditure range of $10 million to $29.9 million. In 2009 CALS’s budget was $13,750,000.

Since opening as the Little Rock Public Library in 1910, CALS has added branches and services, evolving to meet the needs of patrons and becoming one of the largest systems in the mid-South. Innovations such as the bookmobile service that began in 1938 gave way to branch libraries, interlibrary loan, and online access to information.  Though many libraries are seeing reduction in funding, circulation and attendance, CALS has had twelve years of increases in circulation and attendance, and because funding sources are tied to property taxes, has not had to reduce service or staff.

Director Bobby Roberts states, “It is an honor to have our work acknowledged by such a prestigious magazine as Library Journal. I believe CALS is the best library system in the South because the taxpayers have approved the funds to allow us to provide excellent service and resources that our patrons want and need.”

The Main Library campus offers an extensive Reference department, computer lab, specialized Arkansas research resources, art galleries, a used book store, two cafés, and a new area specially designed to accommodate the needs and interests of teens.

 

CALS libraries in Little Rock include:

  • Main Library, 100 Rock Street
  • Dee Brown Library, 6325 Baseline Road
  • Fletcher Library, 823 North Buchanan Street
  • Oley E. Rooker Library, 11 Otter Creek Court
  • Terry Library, 2015 Napa Valley Drive
  • Thompson Library, 38 Rahling Circle
  • Williams Library, 1800 Chester Street
  • McMath Library, 2100 John Barrow Road.
  • CALS also has branches in Jacksonville, Maumelle, Perryville and Sherwood.

Arts & Humanities Month: Central Arkansas Library System

Posted on by

Just over 100 years ago, a Carnegie library was founded in Little Rock as the first Public Library. After ebbing and flowing in two different locations on Louisiana Street in downtown, it has now blossomed into the Central Arkansas Library System.

In addition to the Main Library, which was a catalyst for the redevelopment of the River Market District, there are currently eleven other branches in Little Rock, other parts of Pulaski County, and one in neighboring Perry County.

Not content with merely being a place for people to check out books, CALS also houses the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, the Cox Creative Center, the Darragh Center, the Arkansas Studies Institute, Butler Center Books and the Arkansas Literary Festival. Among the annual programs presented by CALS are the Rabbi Ira Sanders Lecture, and the Booker Worthen Literary Prize.

Under the leadership of Dr. Bobby Roberts, CALS has become a living, breathing entity with dynamic programming for patrons from pre-school to well-seasoned. A perfect example is that on October 27 at the Main Library there is a Halloween costume contest for kids as well as a lecture entitled “Was There Really a Female Pope?”