Correction: Woodson in Pulaski County will be one of a handful of places served by the Wrightsville branch of the Central Arkansas Library System that is set to open Saturday. This article misnamed the community and incorrectly gave the library's opening date.
Wrightsville opened its own public library Saturday.
The 2,100-square-foot building between the Wrightsville City Hall and the city’s gymnasium on Arkansas 365 houses the Millie M. Brooks branch of the Central Arkansas Library System.
The library system has stocked and staffed the facility out of its own budget, but the building is owned by the city.
“What we did was refurbish the building,” said Wrightsville Mayor McKinzie “Mac” Riley. “This has been in the works - it’s been an idea - for a long time. We had the building, which was being used as classrooms most recently, but this use will make it something for everyone in the community.”
The library is the latest partnership the Central Arkansas Library System has formed with cities outside of Little Rock. The library system also operates and stocks smaller branches in Jacksonville, Maumelle and Sherwood. Those buildings are also owned by those cities, said Bobby Roberts, executive director of the library system.
Wrightsville paid about $200,000 to renovate the shotgun-style building and will pay for utilities and building insurance. Operations will cost $80,000 to $90,000 annually and come from the library system’s budget.
“We have tried for 20 years to do some kind of library in that part of the county,” Roberts said. “The city saved enough money and finally were be able to remodel what looked like a classroom space into a library with a conference room and lots of other space.”
For southeast Pulaski County residents, the new branch will put the entire catalog of books, DVDs and reference materials at their fingertips, a boon for the area where officials said many residents don’t have cars and mass transportation is sparse.
Before it opened, the nearest library facilities for those residents were the Main Library branch on Rock Street in the River Market District of Little Rock or the Dee Brown branch on Base Line Road in southwest Little Rock.
The Aerospace branch at3301 E. Roosevelt Road closed in May 2010 as part of budget cuts to raise $1.5 million for a lawsuit settlement requiring taxpayer repayment. The library system chose that location because of the area’s declining population and number of visitors to the branch.
An appeal of that lawsuit’s settlement was dismissed by the Arkansas Supreme Court in May 2012, and the library system was given time to figure out a way to pay back taxes that were collected a year ahead of schedule in 2008. A method to return about $3 million in taxes is still being negotiated, officials said Friday.
When the doors shut on the Roosevelt Road branch,small towns on the southeast edge of Little Rock such as Higgins, Wrightsville, Sweet Home, Red Oak and Wooden lost their closest public library branch and, for many residents, their only access to free Internet. The public schools in the area have libraries and computer laboratories for students - but only at specific times, and they’re closed to the general public.
Riley said the Internet and computer access will help many.
“You have a lot of poor families in this area that didn’t have access to the Internet or computers,” he said. “It makes the playing field even for them if they come in and use them … to apply for jobs, for lots of things.”
More than the access, he said, having a space to meet and create a sense of community might be the most important benefit of the new facility.
“It’s not a big library, and it won’t have the kind of traffic we have at the larger branches,” Roberts said. “But you’ll never convince me that if you have a community that reads a lot that it’s not a better off and smarter community as a whole. It’s a place to get together as well, and that can be just as important in these small cities - having a place to meet and gather and foster a community.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 05/28/2013