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MILLIGAN COLLEGE, TN (March 4, 2002) – Milligan and several area colleges will be expanding their current library resources, thanks to a $1,050,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant is provided through the Appalachian College Association (ACA) to help fund the start-up costs for a Central Library for colleges in Appalachia.
The idea for the library is to give more resources to each school so the faculty and students will be able to increase their learning experience and education.
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 libraries are expensive. Book vendors usually start their prices at a rate for 5,000 full-time equivalent students. Our biggest school has roughly 3,000 students, and many have enrollments in the hundreds.”
Krug said the Central Library will give schools the benefits of pooling their resources together for volume buying and sharing collections.
“If a collection costs $5,000, all 33 schools can share that collection, instead of spending $165,000 for each of them to have a collection,” Krug said.
Another advantage is what Krug called “the multiplier effect.”
“If a student in Virginia returns a checked-out book, a nanosecond later, a student in North Carolina could check out the same book,” Krug said. “This isn’t just about economies of scale. It’s a wise use of money.”
Servers in Berea, Ky., will host the collections, with staff located at Carson-Newman in Jefferson City, Tenn., a more central location for ACA schools.
The concept for the Central Library has been evolving since 1997, when another Mellon grant introduced ACA libraries to electronic library resources. A steering committee for that grant brought together library personnel from each school.
Alice Brown, ACA president, observed the camaraderie and increased interactivity between college libraries and suggested a collaborative venture. Work began on a written proposal in fall 2000.
“We’re now leveraging our resources in a collaborative, cooperative effort,” Krug said.
“This project will greatly help our colleges in their efforts to prepare strong leaders for the future of our region,” said Brown.
The ACA member colleges are Alice Lloyd, Berea, Campbellsville, Cumberland, Kentucky Christian, Lindsey Wilson, Pikeville 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 in Virginia; and Alderson-Broaddus, Bethany, Davis & Elkins, Ohio Valley, University of Charleston, West Virginia Wesleyan, and Wheeling Jesuit in West Virginia.