CALS Butler Center

The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is a department of the Central Arkansas Library System located within the Roberts Library at Library Square in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas. Along with the CALS Butler Center, the CALS Bobby L. Roberts Library for Arkansas History & Art houses the Galleries at Library Square, the UA-Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture, and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies archival collections, along with the archival collections of UA-Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture, contain more than 10 million documents and photographs on Arkansas history. The CALS Roberts Library research room is located on the 2nd Floor and visitors can access items from the manuscript collections as well as view resources from the open and closed stacks, microfilm collections, and online resources such as Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, and Fold3.com available for public use.

The Bill Clinton Gubernatorial Audio Project

The CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies has initiated the Bill Clinton Gubernatorial Audio Project to document Bill Clinton’s role as Governor of Arkansas between 1979 and 1992. We want to ensure these materials are preserved and made available to educators, researchers, and the public in order to help future generations understand how Bill Clinton’s policies and actions impacted Arkansas and the nation leading up to his 1992 United States presidential election victory.

A physical, analog collection (CP.04.03.01) of over 400 standard audiocassettes and 1500 microcassettes from Bill Clinton’s gubernatorial years have been digitized as part of the project. Over 3000 digital audio recordings were produced as part of the digitization process which are currently available to researchers online and by request. A small sample of these digital recordings is featured on the ‘Audio‘ page within this site and a curated collection of digital audio is available online at arstudies.com. Researchers may also view a searchable inventory by visiting the collection’s finding aid.

Other Bill Clinton gubernatorial material

The CALS Butler Center houses the following collection material from Bill Clinton’s gubernatorial years. This material is currently available for viewing within the research room of the CALS Bobby L. Roberts Library for Arkansas History & Art . For more information, please visit the collection finding aids linked below.

Bill Clinton gubernatorial record group; Education Series; Education Team subseries (CP.02.03.06);
This collection contains papers and other items from Governor Bill Clinton’s staff, professionals who advised and assisted the governor in many diverse aspects of education in Arkansas. The Education Team was formed in 1989 and continued to function until Clinton was elected President of the United States at the end of 1992.

Bill Clinton gubernatorial record group; Education Series; Paul Root subseries (CP.02.03.03)
This collection contains working papers of Paul Root, a special advisor to Governor Bill Clinton on education, aging, and religion from January 1983 to August 1987.

Bill Clinton gubernatorial record group; Education Series; Ann Kamps subseries (CP.02.03.07);
This collection contains the working papers of Ann Kamps, who served on Governor Clinton’s staff as Special Assistant to Arkansas’s First Lady and as Special Assistant for Early Childhood Programs from 1985 through 1992.

Bill Clinton gubernatorial record group; Education Series; Kathy Van Laningham subseries (CP.02.03.05);
This collection contains the working papers of Kathy Van Laningham, who served on Governor Clinton’s staff as Senior Assistant for Education from 1988 through 1990.

Bill Clinton gubernatorial record group; Education Series; Don Ernst subseries (CP.02.03.01);
This subseries contains the working papers of Don L. Ernst, who served on Governor Clinton’s staff as Staff Liaison for Education from 1983-1986.

Bill Clinton Gubernatorial record group; Education series; Connie Dardin subseries (CP.02.03.04);
This subseries contains the working papers of Connie Dardin, who served on Governor Clinton’s staff as Senior Liaison for Education from December 1986 until January 1988.

Bill Clinton gubernatorial record group; Education Series; Gloria Cabe subseries (CP.02.03.02);
This collection contains working papers from Gloria Cabe, Senior Advisor on Education and Liaison to National Education Organizations for Governor Bill Clinton from 1988 to 1990, and Chief of Staff to the governor in 1991.