Billboards are going up to herald Clinton library

Just call them "Bill" boards.

The Clinton Presidential Library Foundation has erected 10 billboards featuring an artist's rendering of the future downtown library, hoping to make Little Rock and its library complex an international tourist destination.

The Clinton Presidential Center will include a library, museum and park on the Arkansas River, just east of I-30, and is expected to open in November 2004.

Eight billboards went up last week on major Arkansas highways near Harrison, Hot Springs, Little Rock, Russellville and Texarkana, and two more in regional tourism hot spots, Memphis, Tenn., and Branson, Mo. They will stay in place through November.

"The library has four major missions: One is archival, another is educational, and then there's tourism and economic development," said foundation director Skip Rutherford. "It's time for the tourist part right now."