Carol Powers

Former librarian stays involved through Friends group

Carol Powers, president of Friends of the Faulkner County Libraries, said she’s always loved books. One of her favorite childhood memories is going shopping at Pfeifer’s, an old Little Rock department store, which she recalled had books on the second floor that could be checked out. Powers and her husband have toured homes of writers such as Laura Ingalls Wilder and Eudora Welty.
Carol Powers, president of Friends of the Faulkner County Libraries, said she’s always loved books. One of her favorite childhood memories is going shopping at Pfeifer’s, an old Little Rock department store, which she recalled had books on the second floor that could be checked out. Powers and her husband have toured homes of writers such as Laura Ingalls Wilder and Eudora Welty.

Carol Powers had quite the reputation during her 29-year career at the University of Central Arkansas’ Torreyson Library in Conway.

“Professors would send their students over to the library and tell them to find me. They’d say, ‘If it’s in the library, she can find it. If she can’t find it, it’s not there,’” Powers said, laughing at the memory. “I loved the difficult reference questions.”

Powers, 77, taught library science and served as assistant director and interim director for the library — being in charge was never the job to which she aspired.

“It’s really an ideal community, an ideal place to work,” she said.

Although she retired from UCA in 1998, every chapter of her life has included books.

She is a longtime member of the Friends of the Faulkner County Libraries and has been president of the group almost 2 1/2 years.

Before she was an employee at UCA, the England High School honor graduate got a degree in education and a minor in library science at what was then Arkansas State Teachers College, now UCA. That’s where she met her husband, Charles, too.

The couple worked in the North Little Rock School District. Carol’s first job was as the district’s junior high librarian, then the district’s first library supervisor. Charles was a junior high teacher and later a supervisor over several departmental areas.

“I loved it; I love working with people,” she said. “I love being around the students.”

In the 1960s, elementary schools didn’t have libraries, Powers said. Books were kept in individual classrooms.

As supervisor, she worked with 35 schools in the district.

“What we were doing, that was the beginning of centralized libraries for elementary schools,” she said. Powers and volunteers through parent-teacher associations would talk to the school principals and explain they were taking the books from the classrooms to make a centralized library at each school.

“Some teachers resented it — they didn’t want to give up those books — but later they would come back and tell me, ‘I didn’t want to do this, but you don’t know how much it helped us to have access to so many books,” Powers said.

“From there, I would also advise them as to their purchases and various activities that go on in a library,” she said.

Powers said she and her husband moved to Conway when he got a job in the technology department at State College of Arkansas (another former name of UCA) in 1967, and in 1968, she got a job as instructor of library science and assistant librarian for Torreyson Library. She earned a master’s degree doing coursework during the summers at Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee.

Willie Hardin of Little Rock, former director and dean of Torreyson Library, said Powers was “very helpful in helping me to be the reference librarian I was. Carol and Miss [Gladys] Sachse taught me how to really be a librarian,” he said.

Powers said it was a good time to transition to the collegiate level.

“We were just on the cusp of computers. UCA was the first library — and I was there — to computerize our card catalogue. We were the first in the whole region, actually,” she said.

Powers said she’s always enjoyed learning and digging out information.

“I started helping with genealogy before the age of computers,” she said. “I’d say, ‘The first thing you need to do is go to the cemetery where the folks are buried, or go to the courthouse and ask for records, marriage records.’ … Now most of these things, you can do online.

“That’s why libraries are so important, for our branch libraries to be able to have access to computers,” she said, because particularly in rural areas, not everyone has a personal computer.

The Friends of the Faulkner County Libraries raises money for the main library in Conway, 1900 Tyler St., and its five branches: Greenbrier, Mayflower, Mount Vernon-Enola, Twin Groves and Vilonia. The Friends’ main fundraisers are two books sales a year at the Conway library. This year’s spring sale will be from 6-8:30 p.m.

Friday for members of Friends — memberships are sold at the door — and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday for the general public.

She said a “wonderful group” of Hendrix students and athletes volunteer to bring in the books from the storage facility and help sort them into subjects, such as cookbooks or children’s books.

“We need volunteers; we can always use volunteers to help sort books,” she said.

Powers said shoppers are needed, too, to buy the mounds of books, CDs and DVDs that are collected throughout the year. Record albums and VHS tapes will be free.

The semiannual sales are vital to help the branch libraries with their needs, primarily, and wants, she said.

“It could be some of their programs, or we’ve recently helped the Conway library buy a really fancy multipurpose printer that will do all sorts of media things and produce various things. If we’re having a little story time and it may involve Halloween, this special printer will make a little pumpkin. We can make signs; they make signs for us for the book sale.

“We help with the beautification of the various libraries, and if something gets stolen (and we’ve had that happen), … we replaced it. And there’s a concert series we support.”

She said Friends of the Faulkner County Libraries also supports on a limited basis the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project, which includes a community garden north of the library in Conway.

“You think of libraries as only for books, but really, it’s all sorts of media, and you pull in so many other activities — for example, the garden,” she said. If people are interested in seeds, plants or nutrition, that may bring them to the library, Powers said.

Another of Powers’ volunteer passions is the Oak Grove Cemetery, started in 1880 at the eastern end of Bruce Street in Conway. A 10-acre section of the 24-acre cemetery is on the National Register of Historic Places.

She is a former president of the cemetery board.

“I had helped a lot of people with their genealogy, and I had done some on my side of the family,” she said. “I said, ‘Charlie, you’re a Conway native. What do you know about your family?’”

She said his great-grandfather was James H. Harkrider, for whom Harkrider Street is named, and the Harkrider family helped establish Oak Grove Cemetery.

“Through that, I have come to appreciate the historical aspect of the cemetery,” she said. “It’s such a pleasant place, and I love the trees; there are all these old trees,” she said. Powers said she wonders if the trees were planted by one of her husband’s ancestors or another “outstanding person” in the community.

She served a five-year term on the cemetery board, including two years as president.

Powers is not on the board now, but she is helping with the columbarium project underway in the cemetery. It’s about 80 percent complete, she said, and spaces will be available to buy “in the near future.”

Betty Cohen, president of the Oak Grove Cemetery Board, said Powers is simply “wonderful.”

“She’s just a fine resource. If it weren’t for Carol and some of the others — there are so many people that have just poured hours … and time over the years into the cemetery — I don’t know what we’d have without them,” Cohen said.

“They know everything. If they don’t know it, they’ll find it. I feel very comfortable calling her (Powers) and asking, ‘What are the [regulations] on this?’ She is a strong resource for us.”

These past few weeks, Powers can be found every day at the Faulkner County Library getting ready for the big sale.

Despite the influence of the internet, Powers said, libraries are still popular and necessary.

“I think we will continue to diversify and meet the needs of whatever the current type of media is and have access,” she said. “I think we’re still going to recognize the importance of what we call a library. Even though it’s an old-fashioned term, I think it’s relevant today. I think people are always going to enjoy books and reading.

“There’s nothing like cuddling up at night in your favorite chair, or even relaxing in your bed, with a book. A book — not a computer — but a book.”

And if you need help finding one, just ask her.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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