Job seekers, genealogy enthusiasts, students researching history assignments or transplanted residents have new online tools available through the William F. Laman Public Library system in North Little Rock.
Links to three new databases have been added to the library's website, lamanlibrary.org, that are free and accessible to anyone visiting the main Laman Library, at 2801 Orange St., or the Argenta Branch Library, at 420 Main St., or free from home using a Laman Library card.
The three resources are: Newspapers.com, which provides online access to almost 5,000 newspapers from the 1700s through the early 2000s; NewsBank-America News, newsbank.com,which gives text-only access to current issues of hundreds of newspapers (including the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) and archived newspaper articles from all 50 states and U.S. territories; and AtoZdatabases.com, a resource for job seekers, government records, area demographics, business profiles and other information.
"All three links are available right off our [website's] front page," Richard Theilig, the library's associate director for special projects, said Thursday. The new services, though, haven't yet been rolled out to patrons with information on how to best use the sites, he said. Training staff members is just beginning, he added.
Libraries across the nation have been equipping themselves with such online resources not only for educational purposes, but also for leisure activity and to access business information to better connect communities to their libraries' services, said Julie Todaro, president of the American Library Association based in Chicago.
"The content we used to provide just in books [is] delivered through databases like you mentioned, plus other methods," said Todaro, who said she had a firsthand look at Arkansas libraries during a fall conference in the state. "We are literally changing what we do to encompass the new world. Having the opportunity for all ages to connect electronically is what libraries do. Arkansas is actually ahead of a lot of us because they have collected some incredible data on what Arkansas community members need."
"We absolutely know that people are reading as much or more than they used to read," she said. "We are just getting it from a variety of places now."
Each new service will cost the Laman Library System about $5,000 for a one-year subscription but will be offered at no cost to library patrons, Theilig said. Laman Library had 302,598 visitors last year and another 58,860 at Laman's Argenta branch, according to library figures.
The Central Arkansas Library System, based in Little Rock, also offers free access to Newspapers.com, but only at its branches or at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, according to its website. The Laman Library System is separate from the Central Arkansas Library System.
"These databases have such a breadth of information available, I think they will be used more by patrons," Theilig said. "Our [current] genealogy databases have the highest use of any of the things we offer. The uses on those alone are probably more than all the others combined."
Anyone researching his ancestors can utilize the America News site for family history, too, Theilig said.
"A lot of our genealogy people are looking for obituaries, and these do go back quite a ways," he said. "When you call it up, it will give a table of contents and an index. It shows daily record, the police beat. Someone can copy and paste, save an article or print it out.
"If you're inside the library, it doesn't matter whether or not you have a library card, you can still use it," he said. "If it's used from home, you do have to have a library card."
The America News site shows links to 51 newspapers throughout Arkansas and articles from The Associated Press state wire.
The AtoZdatabases.com site will especially be useful for job seekers, said library Executive Director Crystal Gates, who used the site herself to research Laman Library and North Little Rock when she was applying for the job in 2015. Gates' former library in Jonesboro, La., had the service. She began at Laman Library in October 2015.
"I used it," Gates said. "I really like it, and I wanted to get it here, but we wanted a full year under our belt before we started adding new databases."
"If you're looking for a job, there's a template that has how to do a resume," she said. "Just the information it can give you about the [job's] area. You can get to know the area through some easy-to-find sources: Census information, demographics, information about a business. It can give you a breakdown on a city by neighborhood and by ZIP codes."
Gates' hiring came about a year after longtime library Executive Director Jeff Baskin died unexpectedly, and the library system had encountered financial difficulties that caused several layoffs, reduced library hours and the loss of some programs like an annual writers fellowship and national touring exhibits.
With city government's help in refinancing library bonds, the library system has been able to recover. The library system added back some hours of operation at the start of last year.
"We're getting back on our feet," Theilig said. "We felt like we could add some things that we cut back before. Now we can add some new ones."
Metro on 02/06/2017