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Nate Coulter, an Arkansas native, graduated from college and law school at Harvard University and earned a master's degree in library and information science from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He practiced and taught law for over twenty-five years before becoming the executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) in 2016. CALS is a fifteen-branch system serving about 11 percent of the state’s population, primarily in the state’s capital city, Little Rock.

As a part of Coulter’s vision, CALS has expanded its community outreach staff dedicated to strengthening the library’s service to Black and Latino communities, hired three full-time social workers to assist patrons and support public service staff, opened a hub to assist under-resourced entrepreneurs, launched a one-on-one K–12 math tutoring program, introduced a digital library card for over 57,000 local elementary and secondary students connecting them to the library's online educational resources, and established Be Mighty Little Rock that has enabled the serving of over fifty thousands of meals and after school snacks to children and teens from CALS' libraries. Under Coulter's guidance, CALS won approval from over two out of three voters in a pair of 2021 and 2022 millage elections that secured the financial foundation of the library and enabled a $30 million renovation of the main library. During Coulter’s tenure, CALS won the prestigious Jerry Kline Community Impact Prize (2021) and secured a federal court preliminary injunction (2023) blocking implementation of Arkansas’ book ban law. Coulter and his wife, Nathalie, a public elementary school administrator, enjoy travelling and hiking. They have four adult children now living in four different states, and Theo, a ten-year-old rescue pup.

Personal Statement

“I believe my prior career as a practicing lawyer and my experience leading the state's largest public library in forging a coalition of individuals, organizations, and libraries that successfully challenged an Arkansas law restricting access to books is relevant to the challenges libraries face in the current political context. If I can offer insights from leading the effort to defend libraries and our values in a conservative state, this could be helpful to others facing similar headwinds who are looking for effective ways to make our case with more people, particularly those in rural and conservative states who may not be as focused on the importance of intellectual freedom in our democracy as librarians historically have been.”