Tag: Butler Banner Spring 2023

As I’m writing, we’re fully immersed in summer; there was no slow dipping our toes in the water first—we got the full effect all at once. We’ve learned to expect the heat, but I can’t say I ever look forward to it!

This summer will be like none that the Roberts Library building and staff have seen before,

Now that everyone else has written think pieces about AI, it’s time that the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas weighed in. But first, let’s talk about soap.

I like to buy handmade soap when there are vendors selling it at the local farmers’ market. I won’t argue that some homemade artisanal goat milk soap is necessarily better than the mass-produced stuff I also keep on hand.

Did you know that the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies at the CALS Roberts Library has a collection of historical menus going back over 100 years? You can explore Arkansas’s culinary past by viewing our new mapping project here.

Menus provide intriguing snapshots into our past. Think about how intertwined restaurants are with our lives.

June is Pride Month, the perfect time to talk about gender and orientation. I’m excited we live in a time and place where people are increasingly allowed to explore the gender identity and orientation that suit them, with the freedom to try things on and see what feels right, what rings true. Personal identity is just that—super personal!

Most people involved with the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) recognize the name Ron Robinson. Not only is the CALS Ron Robinson Theater located in Library Square named for Robinson, but he was also active in many library activities. He was on the board of directors of Friends of CALS for three terms and offered pro bono consulting to the library system.

“I might eventually write something, but right now I’m just enjoying the research too much.”

I hear these words often, and they set me on edge each time. Usually, someone has just told me about some research they have undertaken, something that sounds really promising, something that could easily be an article or even a book.

An email from a patron researching family history was recently forwarded to the genealogy reference desk in the CALS Roberts Library Research Room, asking about guardianship laws in Arkansas around 1850. A frequent reference work for us is the Acts of Arkansas, a collection of books publishing bills enacted in Arkansas by the state legislature.

In early May, the Arkansas Digital Newspaper Project (ADNP) team presented “Exploring the Arkansas Digital Newspaper Project” as part of the monthly Legacies & Lunch program at the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS). We wanted to follow that up with an overview of our involvement in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP),

Although the population is only around 2,000, Eureka Springs is arguably one of the most interesting locales in Arkansas. This northwestern Arkansas tourist town situated in the Ozark Mountains is one of two county seats in Carroll County and home to legendary healing springs. The city draws a diverse tourist crowd every year and is known for its spas and bathhouses.

In recognition of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, celebrated each year in May, CALS Roberts Library staff members Brian Robertson and Danielle Afsordeh began searching through the thousands of photographs in the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies’ collections to highlight AAPI content. During that search, Robertson came across the photograph below.

In this photo from the Streetscapes photograph collection (PHO.7),