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Mellon Grant Funds ACA Central Library

For immediate release:	Released by: Diane Hailey
January 8, 2002	(540) 365-4302/ dhailey@ferrum.edu
	The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will provide $1,050,000 to the Appalachian College Association (ACA) to help fund the start-up costs for a central library for colleges in Appalachia. This library, the first of its kind in the region for independent colleges, will provide much-needed library resources to small, private colleges in the mountains of Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The ACA is a consortium of 33 small, private, liberal arts colleges in those states. “The Central Library will allow Ferrum College students and faculty to enjoy a wide variety of the best electronic information resources available, giving us a virtual research environment comparable to those at the research libraries of major universities,” says Dr. Cy Dillon III, director of the Stanley Library at Ferrum College.
Putting a modern twist on the subscription library concept introduced by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, the Central Library will operate electronically. Each school will pay dues to access the collections through the World Wide Web. Thanks to the cost savings that result from central purchasing and cooperation among the participating schools, the ACA projects more than a 10-to-1 return on investment for the grant. Dr. Tony Krug, dean of library services at Carson-Newman College and director of the library project, said the Central Library also should make back far more than the original investment each year in savings. “The students at the ACA colleges get affordable, individualized educations,” Krug said. “But that means less money for resources, and keeping library collections up-to-date is expensive.” Krug said the Central Library will give schools the benefits of pooling their resources together for volume buying and sharing collections. The ACA member schools are Alice Lloyd, Berea, Campbellsville, Cumberland, Kentucky Christian, Lindsey Wilson, Pikesville and Union in Kentucky; Lees-McRae, Mars Hill, Montreat, and Warren Wilson in North Carolina; Bryan, Carson-Newman, King, Lee, Lincoln Memorial, Maryville, Milligan, Tennessee Wesleyan, Tusculum, and the University of the South in Tennessee; Bluefield, Emory & Henry, Ferrum, and Virginia Intermont; and Alderson-Broaddus, Bethany, Davis and Elkins, Ohio Valley, University of Charleston, West Virginia Wesleyan, and Wheeling Jesuit in West Virginia. ###

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