What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/1272416
10 WHAT'S UP! JULY 26-AUGUST 1, 2020 Because of what they learned, House and Schmidt were vigilant about including communities that represented the experience of Black Arkansans. Take Stamps, Ark., for an example, birthplace of Maya Angelou. "While the town is a little too big, and the library's a little too big to have originally made the list, we thought it was an important place to include," Schmidt says. "We thought, 'We want to know what this town is like, where Maya Angelou spent part of her childhood, where "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is mostly set.' We drove around and found much of what she described to still be visible." In recent years, many small libraries have faced harsh budget cuts that have made survival difficult. But what Schmidt discovered in her travels left her optimistic about the future of the institutions — primarily because there are so many people in the state willing to fight for them. "Almost all of the libraries that we visited go back to one person, usually a woman or a group of women, making the decision that the community needed a library that was separate from what the school may or may not have been offering," she says. "And that tradition actually carries on to Wrightsville, just south of Little Rock, which had access to the Central Arkansas Library branches, but there was no library near Wrightsville. A city council member named Emily Brooks worked for years talking to the Little Rock system, asking that Wrightsville be included. And she made it happen. They have a beautiful library that opened in 2013. And then there's the truly grassroots effort of Rachel Reynolds, who moved to Fox and started the People's Library last fall. She found an empty building, the community helped her renovate it, and she's been getting book donations and shelving donations." As for St. Paul and Schmidt's new role there: Now that the book is completed, she says she plans to concentrate on her art and her new position, which she's finding to be exactly — and nothing at all — like what she expected. "As kids, a lot of us may have had access to a small library with a friendly librarian who lets you in, and you're 10 years old, and she kind of steers you away from the kids' books and says, 'Why don't you check over there?'" says Schmidt. "I ended up reading stuff I never knew existed, like my first John Steinbeck novel or something. So I think there's a bit of a romantic, nostalgic aspect to it, what a librarian does for her community." But, she says, as it turns out, it's a lot busier than she expected. "Librarians don't have time to read, but I knew that going in," she says, laughing. "And there's not really any time to walk around the collections, straightening books on the shelves and lovingly dusting the houseplants. It's a lot less quiet than I thought. This is a profession for introverts who can function as extroverts while they're interacting with their communities, with the public. And from what I've heard, extroverts get a lot of energy from those interactions, and introverts need to go home and not talk to anyone for a while. So it's a blend of that, and I love it. "The coolest thing for me as a librarian — you have a 3-year-old coming in who can barely look over the counter, and you say, 'Hi! What do you think about this book?' and you get the smiles and the big eyes and the happiness, the connection that you can make that way. That's my favorite part of the job." Libraries Continued From Page 9 The original intention of the project was for Don House to contribute portraits, black and white photos taken of a smattering of the library's patrons and employees, and Schmidt would record the community around the library with her color photography. This is the Sweet Home C.O.G.I.C. Building in Sweet Home. "Some librarians would probably argue with me on this one, but books are probably the least important aspect of a small public library," Schmidt says. This is the Norman Community Library. The Odd Fellows Meeting Hall in Kingston was captured on film by Schmidt. (Photos by Sabine Schmidt) "We started talking about what would happen if a library had to close or if a community lost its school. Sometimes we saw both in our travels," Schmidt says. "And we wanted to honor that, just kind of show what's happening in all of these tiny places in Arkansas." This is the old school cafeteria in Tollette. Akers Laundry and Cleaners was photographed by Schmidt in Hamburg. Sabine Schmidt's photos for the book are comprised mainly of the library buildings and the communities that surround them. This one was shot in Eureka Springs. FEATURE