CLINTON — The $3 million Van Buren County Library under construction at 289 Factory Road in Clinton can’t get finished soon enough for longtime administrator Karla Fultz.
“We are wall to wall with books,” Fultz said. That might sound good, but it means that everything else has been squeezed out, including the children’s area.
There is no longer any room for children’s activities at the 3,000-square-foot library on Shake Rag Road in Clinton.
“We had to put shelving in that area,” Fultz said. Van Buren County Judge Roger Hooper allows the library to use the Van Buren County Quorum Court’s meeting room in the courthouse annex for children’s summer programs.
“We take our kids across the street in the summer, so it really affects our count,” Fultz said. “We had 60 to 80 kids; now that we have to walk across the street, we’re down to about 45 kids in the summer.”
The new 11,000-square-foot facility — more than 3 1/2 times the size of the current library — will be built on almost 4 acres, property that was donated by Don and Jo Nell Warren. Their son David Warren is a member of the Van Buren County Library Board.
A beam-signing ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday.
“We want to invite the public to come out and sign the last beam … and thank our workers for what they’ve done so far,” Fultz said.
The building is scheduled to be completed in spring 2016. The current library building likely will be sold, Fultz said.
Fultz said the the existing library has undergone only one expansion since she was hired in 1990.
“In 1982, it started out with a little building of about 1,500 square feet. Then, when I started in 1990, they added another 1,500 square feet,” she said.
Although the facility hasn’t grown since then, the demand for its services has, Fultz said.
“We check out about 5,000 books a month here at our library; then we have about 60,000 visits a year,” she said. “We have over 4,000 movies that we check out; we try to keep up with the bestsellers.”
Online services are growing, too. Anyone who has a Van Buren County or Faulkner County Library card can access several online services, including a program to learn foreign languages and a site to do job searches at businesses all over the world. Patrons can download e-reader books online. “That has been very popular,” she said.
Fultz said one of her goals for the library is to add adult programming.
“Because we don’t have the room right now, we don’t have any programs for our adults, … and that’s something I really want to do in our new library,” she said.
Those programs would include computer classes, as well as a class to teach people how to use their iPads and Kindles and how to access services through the library, she said. Fultz envisions “job courses” for people to learn how to create resumes and find jobs.
“We have a lot of local talent that would come in,” she said. Extension Homemakers Club members could teach canning, for example, Fultz said.
She added that she’d like to offer a Spanish class, as well as one to teach sign language.
The new facility will provide room for 19 public computers, 11 more than the library now has. The new library will also have a private study room, and a genealogy and Arkansas history room.
“We started this project about 13 years ago,” Fultz said. “We had a board member who really saw a need, and she got the board on fire.” That board member was Marge Redford, who died last year, Fultz said.
At the time, Clinton needed a new hospital worse than it needs a new library, Fultz said.
“We didn’t want to raise taxes; we felt like we’d be competing. We just started raising money and kept on, and Judge Hooper, when he came into office, … he’s helped me bring our dream to fruition by getting the right people interested in our project,” she said.
The library received an increase in property-tax revenue because of natural-gas drilling, Fultz said. The funds couldn’t be used for capital outlay, but they can be used toward a lease.
The White River Planning and Development District, a nonprofit organization, contracted with First Service Bank to finance the new library, she said. The planning and development district will own the library and lease it to the county for 10 years, at which time ownership will be given to Van Buren County, Fultz said.
In addition, “the Friends of the Library have been working their tails off,” Fultz said. The group held a book sale in November. The library used to hold two book sales a year on the campus, “but because we don’t have any room, we go down to the fairgrounds,” she said.
The Friends group also started the Leg It to the Library Two-Mile Fun Run last year, Fultz said. This year’s run is scheduled for Sept. 26 at Greers Ferry Lake in Choctaw Park.
“It was a lot of fun last year,” she said. “We had about 86 people run last year; we’re hoping to double it this year.” The group made about $1,500, after expenses.
Money is still being raised for furnishings, Fultz said. Donations may be made to the Van Buren County Library, 119 Shake Rag Road, Clinton, AR 72031. She said people may make donations in memory of someone.
The new library will include a public meeting room and an interactive whiteboard, which will be the only one in the community other than the school district’s, Fultz said. She said Kathy Sherwood, Van
Buren County grant coordinator, wrote and received a $3,500 matching grant to purchase the whiteboard.
Melvin Browning, vice president of Friends of the Van Buren County Library Board, said getting a new library is “one of the biggest stepping stones in my life to see something like this come to Clinton.”
He moved to Clinton in 2006, he said, and worked at the library for three years.
Browning said he most looks forward to the meeting room that will house the summer reading program so its participants will “not be cramped” or have to use the courthouse. The room can be used after hours by the public, too, he said.
“I sub at the school, and a lot of kids are excited about the new library,” he said.
“It will be an asset to the whole county … all the little small towns — they’re going to benefit from this tremendously,” he said.
Fultz echoed Browning’s comments.
“I cannot wait; I’m excited,” she said. “I’m excited to further our services for our communities. We’ve been hit by tornadoes and job losses, and the library, along with our school and our hospital, is very vital to keeping our community vital.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.