KINGSTON -- After the library closes in Kingston, a town of about 300 residents, people sit on the front porch or in vehicles out front with laptop computers so they can pick up the library's Wi-Fi signal.
It's strong enough to reach Waldron's Valley Cafe and the gazebo in the middle of the town square, said Linda Davidson, the library director.
The library is the only place in Kingston with public computers or wireless Internet service.
Now, work is being done to expand the 851-square-foot Kingston Community Library in Madison County.
It's already huge compared with the 198-square-foot Norman Library in Montgomery County, which that library's board president, Jean Lybrand, says is the smallest free-standing library in the United States.
But the Kingston library had outgrown its space, said Bill Horrell, who is on the Madison County Library Board.
"The library is pretty much overcrowded with books and bookshelves," he said. "The number of library cards we have issued has just exploded in the last five years."
Work on the Kingston addition began last fall and should be complete by the end of February, said Buddy Shute, the contractor.
Expansion of the Kingston library will increase its size to 1,369 square feet, said Horrell. It will give the building an additional 14 feet of frontage on the downtown square, where it serves as a hub of information and activity.
A deck on the west side of the library building was removed to accommodate the expansion, but the front porch will be extended to provide more outside seating space, he said.
The Kingston library was founded in 1983. It started in a bookmobile, then moved to the community building, then to its current location in 2005. The building that houses the library was originally a flower shop.
Elizabeth Welsh, a sophomore at Kingston High School, said she has been going to the library to use a computer for two years. It also gives her a chance to check out books or DVDs. There's no place to rent DVDs in Kingston.
"There's nothing for the kids to do here unless they play basketball," Davidson said.
The library has a kid's night once a month, with pizza and board games in addition to the computers.
Kim Mercer, a volunteer at the library, said her husband can't get cellphone service in the valley downtown. So he goes to the library to pick up the Wi-Fi signal and send messages on Facebook.
The Kingston library has three computers for public use. Besides books, DVDs and the Internet, patrons of the library can check out fishing rods and tackle boxes with floats, hooks and swivels. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has rods and reels to lend at 66 libraries in the state, said Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the state agency.
The library expansion is being funded with $25,000 in grants and $10,000 from the community, Davidson said.
Friends of the Kingston Community Library worked on the fundraising drive, said Horrell, who has been with that organization since the library was founded. He said the library's annual budget is $32,000.
The library leases a small annex around the corner where excess books are sold on the honor system. There's a plastic jar for donations.
Paul and Wanda Foster were at the Kingston library on Thursday. He headed straight for a computer, and she went to the shelves.
"I'm not into the Internet," said Wanda Foster. "I love books. The limit is 30 minutes on the computer [when people are waiting]. I can't even handle 30 minutes on a computer."
Paul Foster, who operates a sawmill, teaches a chair-caning class at the library.
Thirty-two miles southwest of Kingston is the town of St. Paul, which has its public library in a former FEMA trailer.
There are three public libraries in Madison County: Kingston, St. Paul and Huntsville. They are affiliated with the Carroll and Madison Library System, which includes the Carroll County libraries in Eureka Springs, Berryville and Green Forest. Carroll and Madison counties are in the Ozark Mountains.
Wes Fowler, the former county judge of Madison County, bought the three-bedroom trailer from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to use as a library, according to its website, carrollmadisonlibraries.org. The trailer was originally constructed for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Since its founding in 1995, St. Paul had been using Kingston's hand-me-down bookmobile as a library. It was so old there was an 8-track tape player mounted in the vehicle.
Then in 2011, the St. Paul Public Library moved into the FEMA trailer, according to the library's website.
The St. Paul Public Library is 1,576 square feet, said Horrell. That includes the original 896-square-foot FEMA trailer and a 680-square-foot addition that was completed a year ago.
So, after the Kingston library expansion, it will still be smaller than the library in St. Paul.
Bonnie Rodgers, director of the St. Paul Library, said besides books the facility also has music CDs, DVDs, fishing poles and three computers the public can use.
Although there are a couple of businesses in St. Paul that have Wi-Fi, the library gets a lot of patrons who stop by just to connect to the wider world, she said.
"We're just like Kingston," said Rodgers. "We've got quite a few people who don't have Internet at their house, who live up in the mountains."
Down in the Ouachita Mountains, they lay claim to a much smaller library.
Lybrand, the Norman Library Board president, said the town's library is 22-by-9 feet inside. She said the building was constructed to be a library and was completed in 1937. She said it was renovated in the late 1990s and again in 2012 after the roof leaked and caused flooding.
"As far as we know, it's the smallest free-standing library in the United States," Lybrand said.
The building holds more than people would expect.
"There's over 3,000 books in that library," Lybrand said. "We have two computers, Internet and a printer."
Lybrand said she's gotten used to kids calling her Mrs. Librarian since her name sounds like that anyway.
Metro on 02/07/2016