Donald Nathan Coulter
Arkansas native — and former paper boy — Nate Coulter leads Central Arkansas Library System, armed with persistence and a Harvard law degree.
The days of the quaint library are long gone. No more are the days of a big, stuffy warehouse of books, magazines and newspapers being monitored by a stern librarian who lived only to keep the sanctuary of printed materials quiet. “Shussshhhhhhhh!”
The Central Arkansas Library System is a boisterous example of how the modern library is doing so much more than lending out copies of the latest murder mystery or biography of a political figure. Lending out a vast array of digital books, music, videos along with the physical copies? Do you need a fishing pole? Interested in attending a top-notch literary festival with authors from around the country flying in for readings? CALS has all of that covered and much, much more.
Overseeing CALS, which has 14 separate branches and approximately 260 full-time employees, is Executive Director Nate Coulter. Coulter is now four years in as head of CALS, taking the reins from venerated, longtime library leader Bobby Roberts.
Looking at the background of Coulter — a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School — nothing necessarily seems to be pointing directly to him occupying an office on the top floor of the main library in downtown Little Rock.
“In my view, selecting Nate is one of the best decisions we have made in my 20 years at CALS,” says Annette Herrington, the current president and 20-year member of the CALS board. “He is open-minded, very thoughtful and beyond thorough. He examines issues from every angle and he focuses on our overall mission without losing any of the details. I know from experience what a rare combination of skills that represents for a nonprofit.”
Coulter sees the library as playing a vital role in the life of Central Arkansas. He does not agree with the library as an old-fashioned or outdated concept in the age of the internet.
“We think there are things we can do in this community to provide uplift and support for the whole community,” Coulter says. “Libraries that are thriving are changing. They are providing digital material on digital platforms. We have a tool library and a toy library in Jacksonville. I think we can do things that are significant.”
NASHVILLE SCRAPPERS
Perhaps it says something about Coulter’s childhood that he can instantly rattle off the population of his home town of Nashville — 4,103. Coulter was the oldest of three boys. Coulter’s father was a “Main street retailer — furniture and home décor — and mom was a schoolteacher when she wasn’t a stay-at-home mom.”
“I clearly grew up in lap of luxury,” Coulter says. “My parents had college degrees and good jobs. There wasn’t anything I wanted. That wasn’t true for everybody. It was a very ordinary growing up.”
When he wasn’t working on the weekends helping his father load and unload furniture, he was delivering newspapers.
“My first job was delivering the Nashville News,” Coulter says. “I got the downtown paper route on Main Street. There were two stoplights on either end. You didn’t have to roll so many of your newspapers. You could
walk in the stores and businesses and hand them papers. I rode up and down the street on my banana seat bike. I was 12.”
Those newspapers held great interest for Coulter, now 60. Not only did he follow the news of the day — even political events that didn’t mean much to his friends — but every paper brought sports scores and sports stories.
“I was more interested in football and basketball in the sports I wanted to play,” Coulter says. “I started playing football in junior high. I probably wanted to fit in. I was interested in sports and always have been.”
By the time he was in high school, Coulter was running track and playing football for the Nashville Scrappers. Coulter played defensive end and center — positions usually occupied by boys who were considerably beefier than his 150ish-pound frame.
“The story was that I was the only center who ran the 440 relay,” Coulter says. “I had bad hands. I couldn’t catch the ball.”
Those who watched Coulter closely say he wasn’t just taking up space on the team.
“He just an outstanding athlete and person of high integrity,” says Tom DeBlack, Coulter’s high school coach and history teacher. “We’ve been close for a long time. He was a top-notch student and was honored for what he did on the football field. He also set the record for roughing the punter twice in the same game. I attribute that to over-aggressiveness.”
Though he wasn’t destined for greatness as an athlete, Coulter loves the definitive nature of sport, the way the best athletes rise to the challenge and are rewarded.
“The great thing about sports is that you can or you can’t hit a major league fastball. You can be an NFL receiver or you can’t. There’s something redeeming about that. You can’t talk your way through it. I say that as someone who likes to talk a lot.”
HARVARD BOUND
In the Coulter household, there was no question that teenage Nate would be headed off to college after graduating high school. For Coulter, this is another indication of how fortunate he was to have the upbringing he had.
“As Dale Bumpers used to say, ‘I did a great job picking my parents.’”
As for the college, he did end up in — Harvard — he credits one person for that.
“Mrs. Bird was the proverbial little old lady English teacher,” Coulter says. “If I had to pick six or seven people who are most influential in my life besides my parents, she would be one of them. Seventeen-year-old boys were miraculously healed by her personality and attention.”
Mrs. Bird set her sights on where Coulter was going once done with Nashville High School.
“She called me up to her desk one day. She said, “Where are you going to college?’ ‘Oh Mrs. Bird, I don’t know. I might go up to Fayetteville or maybe Hendrix.’ ‘Why don’t you go someplace different? Why don’t you think about going to Harvard?’ I had no idea where it was. Over the course of the next semester, she started checking on it for me. I don’t know if I really wanted to do that but I didn’t want to disappoint Mrs. Bird.”
At Harvard, Coulter had to adjust to many things including living in a dorm room right next to the busy streets of Cambridge, Mass., with people up at all hours. He adjusted to the classwork and gravitated toward kids from Georgia or Texas.
“One of my closest friends I still have I met because across the dining hall I saw him wearing an SMU Mustangs Mania T-shirt. I thought, man, he’s from right next door.”
Harvard opened Coulter’s eyes in a lot of ways but he knew he was going to law school once he finished up college.
“Before I even got to [Harvard], I was pretty set on going to law school,” Coulter says. “That could also go back to the library. I am sure To Kill a Mockingbird and Atticus Finch were involved,
an influence in there somewhere. Something about practicing law appealed to me — the intellectual rigor and street-savvy reality that, say, being a Ph.D. in history didn’t have. I wanted to be in a place where what I did had a practical effect.”
READY TO RUN
Coulter returned to Arkansas after graduating from Harvard Law School. He was a law partner for Wright Lindsey and Jennings for six years. He spent some time as assistant legal counsel to then-Gov. Bill Clinton, who Coulter notes “was a prodigious reader and absorbed information better than anybody I’ve ever known.” Coulter was a campaign director for Sen. Dale Bumpers in 1992.
By 1993 Coulter was ready to launch his own campaign for lieutenant governor.
“It required relentless exercise of focus and discipline,” Coulter says. “You’re gonna spend all the time you have working on it or worrying about it and you are still gonna not have enough time. It was fun in a way because you got to meet a lot of people. It was also exhausting and I was 33.”
The result of the campaign was noteworthy but
not a way that Coulter hoped.
“I made Mike Huckabee famous by coming up short a few thousand votes.”
A second run for political office — this time for U.S. Senate — in 1998 was another loss for Coulter and not nearly close. He sums it up this way: “It was the wrong race at the wrong time.”
With his political ambitions behind him, Coulter returned to practicing law. His years as a lawyer didn’t lessen his admiration for the profession even as he did grow weary of certain aspects.
“For everything that is essential about being a lawyer, the other side is that it is inherently adversarial and confrontational. I began to wonder if there was something I could do that was less so and still be gratifying.”
As it so happens, Coulter was becoming familiar with the Central Arkansas Library System.
“I was on the library board and had great admiration for things that Bobby Roberts had done,” Coulter says. “The library had been bold in setting out branches all over the city in his tenure. The main library was a beachhead for the River Market.”
Now that Coulter has been executive director of CALS for four years, he can draw a clear connection between the aims of his old job with the responsibilities of the library.
“What lawyers do is helpful to our self-governing, the health of democracy is served by a functioning judicial system,” Coulter says. “The library has that role, too. It provides reliable information and resources to people and that helps us govern ourselves. The library is a defender of privacy, zealous promoter of intellectual freedom. You allow everybody to have access to what they need.”
It’s not hard for Coulter to point out areas and programs where CALS is reaching out to the community in new ways. He mentions a program devoted to assisting entrepreneurs just starting out. Then there’s the program to help local schools.
“I’ve always been interested in education,” Coulter says. “I have always been enamored of what educators do. That is right in the wheelhouse of what libraries do. Two years ago, CALS started issuing Tech Cards to students of the Little Rock School District. We had eight pilot elementary, middle and high schools chosen by the district. Now we have issued over 50,000 cards to public and private school districts across our service area that have asked to participate.”
When he is not at work, Coulter follows the activities of his three grown children. His habit of reading hasn’t worn off over the years and his supply of reading material has only increased.
“I like doing things in the kitchen, especially if Nathalie [his wife] is supervising the cooking project,” Coulter says. “I exercise about five times a week — usually running or hopping on the old elliptical machine I bought years ago and stuck in my basement. Finally, I’m playing the piano again after a long lay-off. I play strictly for my own escape and enjoyment. I’m not a very talented musician and don’t subject others to my playing, but I have long appreciated the emotional connection music seems to make for me.”
Coulter may not have seen the library in his future many years ago. Despite the twists and turns, Coulter is quite comfortable where he is and, most importantly, sees bright days ahead.
“I believe the future of the public library is more important and its prospects are better than it has ever been.”