Remembered as a visionary for libraries and for emphasizing community exposure to the arts and history, Jeff Baskin left his mark on North Little Rock and beyond, friends and colleagues said Wednesday.
Baskin, the executive director of North Little Rock's William F. Laman Library System for 27 years, died Tuesday night, less than eight weeks after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He was 67.
As the library system's head, Baskin was at the forefront of projects that included doubling the size of the main library at 2801 Orange St., opening a downtown Argenta branch library, then relocating that branch to the much larger, former U.S. post office building at 420 Main St. -- a major renovation effort in which Baskin was very much hands-on.
Both libraries will close from noon to 4 p.m. today to allow library staff to attend Baskin's funeral, a library system spokesman said. Early voting for the North Little Rock School Board election will also be suspended at the main library during those hours, then restart until 5 p.m., said Bryan Poe, director of elections for the Pulaski County Election Commission.
North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith called Baskin "the face of the arts and cultural movement in our community" for at least the past two decades.
"I believe he made us realize just how important it was to embrace the arts in order to add to the quality of life and the economic advancement that comes along with it," Smith said. "If it hadn't been for Jeff's leadership, the expansion of Laman Library and the creation of a downtown branch library wouldn't have come about.
"He will be impossible to replace," the mayor continued. "He was just that much of a piece of our community."
Baskin, a native New Yorker, also oversaw additions at Laman Library of an exhibit gallery hall, a coffee shop and a large computer room, and the offering of such features as hosting lectures and live music, fellowships for Arkansas authors and online gaming nights. All were ways, Baskin said in past interviews, to not only increase community involvement in the library, but also for the library to give back to the community.
"The main thing Jeff taught me was that a library was more than a building full of books," Ron Oliver, longtime chairman of the Laman Library board of trustees, said in a statement released through the library system. "It should be a center to educate and challenge people of all ages and all backgrounds. And, very importantly, it should be fun. His combination of intelligence, energy and vision will be hard to replace."
Many of Laman Library's innovations were watched closely by other libraries in the state, said Bobby Roberts, director for the Central Arkansas Library System based in Little Rock. The Laman Library System is independent from the Central Arkansas Library System.
When Arkansas voters approved a state constitutional change in November 1992 to allow an increase in library millage rates, Laman Library was the first to seek and be successful, at a millage election in early 1993, Roberts said. The Central Arkansas Library System followed with its own attempt just months afterward.
"We thought if he could do it, we'll try it, too," recalled Roberts, who became the Central Arkansas Library System's director in 1989, two years after Baskin joined the Laman Library. "He was sort of a laboratory for us in some ways in trying all these new ideas with the library, especially being on a real cutting edge of the digital revolution. A lot of libraries in the state, including this one, looked at what he did. He was far out ahead of all of us in the use of digital resources and in understanding how that would impact us as libraries."
Dan Noble, Laman Library System's public relations director, said that the main library's exhibit hall, which opened in 2009, could well serve as Baskin's legacy for the library system. A smaller gallery area in the Argenta branch opened this spring.
"That exhibit hall, that was his forward thinking to not just make the library where books are, but that you're changing with the times," Noble said. "He said you need to bring this history and the art to the people. He was committed to an investment of history and learning in the community."
Baskin's sudden diagnosis of cancer in mid-July prevented him from appearing in the role of a rabbi in a local musical production of Fiddler on the Roof at the Argenta Community Theater in North Little Rock. Baskin had embraced the opportunity despite his admission that he couldn't sing or dance and had never been on a stage, said Judy Tenenbaum, the theater's co-founder and a close friend of Baskin and his wife, Sue Weinstein. All of the show's performances were dedicated to Baskin.
"He took on Fiddler just as he took on everything he ever did: with total dedication and not wanting to let anybody down," Tenenbaum said. She also referred to Baskin as a mensch, a Yiddish term for a person of integrity and high moral character, and praised his involvement in the region's Jewish community as well as in Argenta's arts community.
"He is part of the successes that have made Argenta be Argenta," she said. "He will always be a part of that. And in the way he lived his life and the kind of man he was, he was a true mensch."
Metro on 09/11/2014