Join us for a look at small and rural libraries around our beautiful state! Refreshments will be provided.
With their cameras and notebooks in hand, photographers Sabine Schmidt and Don House embarked on an ambitious project to document the libraries committed to serving Arkansas’s smallest communities. Their book, Remote Access: Small Public Libraries in Arkansas, is the culmination of this fascinating three-year effort, which took the artists to every region of their home state.
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6:30 pm - Book sales and signings
7:00 pm - Author talk and audience questions
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Official Press Release:
Twin Groves Public Library Featured in New Book
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CONWAY, Arkansas – The Twin Groves Public Library and the Conway County Bookmobile are both featured in a new book by Arkansas photographers and writers Sabine Schmidt and Don House. Remote Access: Small Public Libraries in Arkansas was published by the University of Arkansas Press. Twin Groves and the Morrilton-based bookmobile are among the 21 libraries from across the state that are highlighted in the book. The authors will be at the Conway Public Library on Tuesday, October 25, at 6:30 p.m. to show photographs, read from the book, and speak about their experiences in the communities they visited. The presentation is open to the public, and all are welcome. Refreshments will be served.
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Schmidt and House collaborated on this three-year project to celebrate Arkansas libraries, librarians, and the critical and changing roles they play in small communities. Schmidt focused her attention on the community and the landscape, photographing with traditional color film, while House, in black-and-white, concentrated on the people who use the library services and the staff who make those services possible. While Schmidt wandered the community and the countryside, House set up his portable portrait studio in the library and photographed every person who walked in on that particular day.
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“These aren’t postcard images,” says Schmidt. “I try to capture the feel of the community, what a visitor might see the first time. Through photographs of the architecture of the homes and businesses—both in use and abandoned—I present an honest portrayal of a town and region. I study the history of the community, which informs my approach, what attracts my attention, what makes me stop and set up a tripod and attach a heavy camera.”
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When House speaks of his experiences in a community, they always revolve around the people he meets—at the library, in the surrounding community, and on the way to the library.
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“I am first and foremost a portrait photographer,” says House. “I try to record the essence, the character and personality of the person on my canvas. I was pleased to find that no one who walked in a library ever refused to be photographed. They were so grateful to their librarians and the library that they were willing to sit for a stranger with a camera, if they thought it would help in any way. I photographed over five hundred people during this project, and I think the stories of the communities are told in those faces.”
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In the book, photographs of each library, its patrons and staff, and the surrounding community are accompanied by the authors’ personal essays.
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“It became clear to us, after we visited the first library, that a simple caption for each photograph would not tell the whole story, would not do the people and the communities justice,” says House. “The people we were meeting, and those conversations, and our day-to-day experiences during the project demanded more.”
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“And we discovered that just as we approach our photography very differently, we also write very differently, but in a way that meshes well to make a more complete narrative,” says Schmidt. “I concentrate on the history, the culture, the tangible, while Don keys in on someone from the visit who touched him in some significant way.”
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With funding from the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies at the University of Arkansas, Schmidt and House chose nine libraries to return to: Twin Groves/Conway, Cotton Plant, Horatio, Tollette, Hampton, Eureka Springs, Wrightsville, and St. Paul. At the presentation on Thursday, October 25, at 6:30 p.m., Schmidt and House will show photographs from the Twin Groves Library as well as from the other libraries visited, read from their essays, answer questions, and solicit comments from the audience. Books will be available for sale, and the authors will sign copies.
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About the Authors:
Sabine Schmidt holds an MA in American studies from the University of Hamburg and an MFA in literary translation from the University of Arkansas. Her work has appeared in many publications, including National Geographic and the German edition of Rolling Stone, and her Paper House series led to an installation commission from the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute. She won an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council in 2018.
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Don House has been photographing the people and landscapes of Arkansas for nearly four decades. His images have appeared in numerous exhibitions and in publications such as Woman’s World and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Buffalo Creek Chronicles, Not a Good Sign, and the children’s book Otto’s Great Adventure.
The Conway library serves as the headquarters library for the county sytem of six libraries as well as the Faulkner County–Van Buren County Regional Library.