100 Years of Arkansas Library Association History

The Association history provided has been taken from two pieces written for Arkansas Libraries in 1986

A Quick Reflection on our First 75 years

As we reflect on the seventy-five-year history of the Arkansas Library Association, we each can probably remember someone who influenced our development as a librarian. Some of us would name professors of librarianship; others might name our first boss. Many would probably name a peer.

Peer strength is what the Arkansas Library Association is all about. Any association is only as strong as its members; collectively members are stronger than they ever could be individually. School librarians especially would be left in limbo and loneliness without the professional support offered through our association. Whatever strength we have in libraries of all types in Arkansas may be due, at least in part, to the bonds established through the Arkansas Library Association.

We offer a tribute to the Arkansas Library Association for what its members have been able to accomplish in seventy-five years. First, the membership has built a vital, unified association. Many state associations have abandoned the idea that librarians of all types can work together; those associations have splintered into separate library groups. Our association is strong because we continue to work together. The informal and formal networks that we have built among libraries of different types and the personal relationships that we have developed make libraries throughout Arkansas better.

A second accomplishment of the Arkansas Library Association is that it has elevated the professionalism of Arkansas librarians. Continuing education programs are often offered under the auspices of our association. Many of the lobbying and intellectual freedom efforts undertaken by librarians in our state are spearheaded by association members to help all Arkansas Libraries, not just particular ones.

We could sit back smugly and contemplate all we have accomplished for libraries in the seventy-five-year history of the association. However, Theodore Roosevelt had a better perspective on history: "I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present." Indeed, we have many fine goals still to accomplish for libraries in Arkansas.

The strength of our association in striving toward its goals lies with its members, with you and me. Strong leadership of the association can unite us behind common goals; however, it is only we, the little people, the school librarian from Fayetteville and the university librarian from Conway and the public librarian from Mena, who can make our association strong. We must participate in committee work; we must attend conference and make suggestions for program improvement; we must spread the word about libraries among our constituents.

Above all, we must recruit new members. Our membership now is less than one thousand (in a state which has that many school librarians alone). Librarians who are not members cannot receive our full support, nor can our association have a strong impact if it represents only a minority of the librarians in the state. Perhaps we ought to adopt a campaign of "Each one, reach one." If each of our 861 present members brought into the association one new member per year, in two years we would have topped the twenty-five hundred mark. More importantly, we would have extended the professional opportunities for sharing and growth offered by our association to seventeen hundred new or previously isolated librarians.

Let us not linger complacently over the seventy-five-year history of the Arkansas Library Association; let us build on our past and plan our accomplishments for the days and years to come. Albert Camus suggested our path for the future: "History may perhaps have an end; but our task is not to terminate history, but to create it."


The above piece is a republishing of the editors column in the December 1986 issue of Arkansas Libraries.

Stripling, Barbara and Judy Pitts. "From the Editors." Arkansas Libraries. vol. 43 no. 4 (December 1986) p. 4.



Go to: TOP OF PAGE,  Part 1,  Part 2,  Part 3