About the Center

About the UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture

About the UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture To learn more: https://ualr.edu/cahc

Mission Statement

The UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture collects, keeps safe, and makes available Arkansas history. We connect people to each other and their shared experiences.

Vision Statement

The UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture is a unique and reliable resource that explores and promotes Arkansas’s rich history through the identification, collection, and preservation of records that are of enduring value to the state.

As a leader in archival practice and education, we prepare students for careers in public history. Professionals seek our collaboration on best practices and archival technologies. We are a good neighbor to other libraries, archives, and museums. We provide access to a large repository of archival materials. The public can use these records to better understand Arkansas’s journey. Our collections document our history, but can also guide the state’s future.

CAHC is a leader in community engagement. We participate in outreach and programming and create virtual and physical exhibits using state-of-the-art technology. We help people of our state and beyond actively engage in the history and culture of Arkansas.

Ask Us

Want to know about our holdings?  Have a research question for our archivists? If you already know what materials you want, but they are not available digitally in our catalog, you can submit a Digitization Request. Are you planning to include our materials in a publication? Fill out our Patron Request form and an archivist will contact you within a few days.

Forms, policies, and documentation

Patron Request Form (Research help, digitization, permission to publish)

Digitization/Duplication Services

Policies

Documentation

The Center’s digitization workflow describes the standards, specifications, and processes involved in our digitization efforts. The standards are based on both our local needs and on international digitization standards. The document continues to evolve as the Center’s own holdings and needs evolve.

View the CAHC Digitization Manual.

Participate

The CAHC welcomes your participation in the preservation of Arkansas history. Here’s how you can help:

Donate – Our collections policies will help you determine whether you may have papers, photographs, or other artifacts that could be donated to the center’s archives.

Support –  Our development fund allows us to expand our holdings, support processing, public programming, and acquire technology to digitize our holdings.

For more information, email cahc@ualr.edu.

Plan Your Visit

Welcome to the Research Room

This video is a guide to help familiarize students with procedures on how to handle research materials at our research room.

Note: the hours in this video have since been changed. See the correct hours below.

The Bobby L. Roberts Library of Arkansas History and Art combines the archival holdings of two institutions, UA at Little Rock’s Center for Arkansas History and Culture and the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

To help make the researcher’s experience efficient and fulfilling, the two institutions have created a single research portal that provides all of the information you need to plan your visit to the archive, including the ability to submit questions and requests to the staff.

Visit the online catalog at Arkansas Studies Research Portal.

Research Room at Roberts Library

In-person access to CAHC materials in the Roberts Library research room is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Patrons must make an appointment at least two full business days in advance so that requested material can be ready for review in the Roberts Research Room.

Researchers may use the main entrance at 401 President Clinton Ave. and proceed to the second-floor research area. Parking is generally available in the Main Library parking lot; bring your parking stub to the research desk for a 2-hour credit.

Staff Directory

Main number: 501-320-5780
Email: cahc@ualr.edu

Jess Porter, Ph.D.
Executive Director
jcporter@ualr.edu

Laura McClellan
Assistant Director
lcmcclellan@ualr.edu

Elise Tanner, M.L.I.S.
Director of Digital Projects and Initiatives
emtanner@ualr.edu

Emily Summers, M.A.
Processing Archivist
ersummers@ualr.edu

James Wethington, M.L.I.S.
Archivist
jwethington@ualr.edu

Amanda McQueen, M.A., Ph.D
Archivist
amcqueen@ualr.edu

Deborah Baldwin, Ph.D.
Associate Provost
djbaldwin@ualr.edu