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Come feast your eyes on three exhibitions currently mounted in the CALS Bobby L. Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art before the building transforms for a time into use as a regular library. During the renovation of the CALS Main Library, the 1st floor of the CALS Roberts Library (current home of the Galleries &

The March 31, 2023, tornado outbreak had a devastating effect on central Arkansas as well as other parts of the state. Many lives were impacted, and the staff members here at the Central Arkansas Library System feel for those who have experienced such devastation.

It is important at times like this that we make an effort to document such a tragic event,

At the recommendation of a friend, I recently read The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by English literary scholar and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, which is one of those big, ambitious books that aims to weave together modern neuroscience with philosophy and literary history and the evolution of what we call “the West.” It is of a species with other books like psychologist Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,

In preparing to write this blog post, I decided to review what I’d written over the last three and a half years. It seems that most, if not all, of my posts reflected one change or another at the Roberts Library.

And what changes there have been! I am so proud of the staff of the Roberts Library for their flexibility and stamina throughout the last few years.

Following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Arkansas’s women faced new challenges in adapting to the changes in their society as they moved from a largely French influenced society to one that was based in English Common Law. This shift took many rights away from women that they had previously enjoyed, such as independently operating businesses and owning land.

Mary Loughborough was the publisher of the Little Rock, Arkansas–based Southern Ladies’ Journal. When she died at the age of fifty, she was buried alongside her husband in Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock.

She was born in New York on August 25, 1837, and raised in St.

Over the years, Butler Center Books has published a number of ground-breaking books on Arkansas women and their accomplishments. Take a look at the six fascinating reads below, and view the entire catalog here.

Arkansas Women and the Right to Vote: The Little Rock Campaigns: 1868-1920

by Bernadette Cahill

Women from all over Arkansas – left out of the civil rights granted by the post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments – took part in a long struggle to gain the primary civil right of American citizens: voting.

Probably in late elementary school or early junior high, I began reading a lot of classic science fiction, especially the novels of Isaac Asimov. I was particularly entranced with his Foundation series, which begins in the waning days of the Galactic Empire. The mathematician Hari Seldon develops a discipline called psychohistory,

Over the years, Butler Center Books has published a number of ground-breaking books relating to African American history and civil rights in Arkansas. Take a look at the seven fascinating reads below, and view the entire catalog here.

OUTSPOKEN: The Olly Neal Story

By Olly Neal Jr.

When posed with the question of an Arkansas-related blog post topic for Valentine’s Day, the rural community of Romance in White County came to mind. As you may know, the town of Romance gets quite a bit of attention during the Valentine month of February, with the local post office being the hot spot.