Renovations close Dee Brown library
The Dee Brown library branch on Baseline Road closed Wednesday for remodeling and expansion and won't reopen until late September.
The Central Arkansas Library System has planned a 2,200-square-foot expansion to add a teaching kitchen, maker lab with equipment for hands-on learning, and an expanded outdoor deck area.
The $1.3 million expansion will be paid with funds from a bond refinancing that voters approved in July 2015.
Fennell Purifoy Architects designed the expansion and Flynco Inc. will do the construction.
Patrons with library cards can request that any material at the Dee Brown branch be transferred to another branch during the temporary closing. The closest branches are the McMath Library at 2100 John Barrow Road and the Rooker Library at 11 Otter Creek Court.
The Dee Brown branch opened in 2002 at 6325 Baseline Road. It has study rooms, a meeting room, and an outside deck and boardwalk.
The library is named for the novelist and historian best known for the 1970 book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Brown died in December 2002 at age 94 in his Little Rock home.
Kids bike parade set for Saturday
The Downtown Neighborhood Association's annual July 4th Children's Bicycle parade will take place Saturday.
The parade begins at 10 a.m. at Spring Street and Charles Bussey Avenue and ends at the gates of the Governor's Mansion. There will be prizes for the best decorated bikes and wagons.
More information is available by emailing Denise Ennett at ennettdenise@gmail.com or by calling (817) 894-4628.
Libraries receive telescopes to lend
A new telescope lending program will soon start at Central Arkansas Library System branches through a partnership with the Central Arkansas Astronomical Society.
The society is modifying 16 telescopes for public use. The program is to start in late summer.
The 4.5-inch Orion StarBlast Newtonian telescopes gather several hundred times more light than the unaided eye and magnify up to 56 times, according to a news release.
They are "particularly suited to observing the moon and the brighter planets, such as Saturn [and] Jupiter, and under proper conditions some 'deep sky' objects can be observed as well, such as star clusters," the release said.
The Astronomical Society helped the library system procure the funding for the lending program from the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium.
Shy little antelopes are new at the zoo
The Little Rock Zoo recently acquired two new animals -- yellow-backed duikers, or small antelopes.
Maji is a 2-year-old female duiker. She was transferred from the Dallas Zoo. Stanley, a 1-year-old male, came from the Cincinnati Zoo.
The animals, which are native to African forests, are shy and often hide under the brush of their exhibit, zoo officials said.
"While the yellow-backed duiker isn't on the threatened or endangered species list, populations are in decline due in large part to habitat destruction," zoo Director Mike Blakely said. "It's our hope that they will mate, but also we're excited to have this species at the Little Rock Zoo for the first time. We think guests will be excited to see these beautiful animals."
Metro on 06/26/2016