Jerry and Shirley Boone: - Ferrum College

IN THE Dr. CLASSROOM:
Cy Dillon, III
Library Director
By Lisa J. Bowling
The disharmony of laughter and verbal sparring. The computer bank
keyboards’ clatter. The crossfire of newcomer greetings. The musty
sounds of a mausoleum relegated to yesteryear. With his door
customarily wide open, Dr. Cy Dillon, III, library director and
Academic Support division chair, revels in the controlled chaos of The
Paper Chase archetype run amok.
Head of Public Services George Loveland equates it to “an open
marketplace of ideas. The academic equivalent of the barbershop. It is
a place where you can try out new ideas.”
The twirl of voices, dancing through intellectual exchange, belies a
1985 administrative mandate to Dillon to quiet the setting for a more
scholarly–read staid–atmosphere. The 60 computers now spanning
cyberspace give no hint of a time when there was only one Apple IIE
at his–and the campus’s–disposal. In those days, book checkout and
usage statistics were done manually. Fees were still levied as late fines.
And Dillon, as the new director, sans a library degree, was determined
to learn on the job.
After a four-year stint as Ferrum’s Associate Dean, charged with
leading the school’s conversion to a baccalaureate–conferring school,
Dillon met his new role with skepticism and thoughts of returning to
his previous work in public education. Within months, however, his
enthusiasm grew to voluminous proportions. It was an early lesson,
one he hasn’t forgotten: Sometimes the work one gets is better than
the role one picks.
Loveland maintains Dillon’s lack of formal library training allows
him to see opportunities where others see impossibilities. “He never
gets bogged down in what we can’t do. He formulates ideas as a user,
scholar and a teacher.” Dillon explains, “I learn a lot about how to
make a library work by listening to the students.”
The challenges of being a library director today are complex.
Dillon finds that one of his major roles is to identify emerging
applications for learning. He has witnessed the move from bound
works into e-books, and from massive main frames to wireless
hardware and portable personal digital assistants (PDAs). “We now
have to work not only in our physical library space, but also in
cyberspace, where there’s so much information.”
“Things are becoming more condensed, more a matter of navigating
cyberspace than of controlling space.” Subject matter will become more
accessible, less cumbersome and easier to use. “But our job will still be
to help students understand how to find and use that information.”
“Cy foremost is a teacher,” Loveland offers. “He is an effective
administrator, but when he faces a situation in which the administrative
duties compete with the needs of students, the students get the
attention. He always remembers what we are really here for.”
Dillon values this role. “The great thing about a job like this is that
we work with students. We’re not exalted in a sense of lecturing from
a platform. We’re not administrators who make rules. We’re someone
who will teach a class, but we’ll also sit down and help the students
work through problems.”
“Our goal is to know [students’] names, greet them, find out what
they need and help them find it.” He is especially proud that “they trust
us to help them when we can and to find someone for them when we
can’t. Even small colleges usually don’t give that level of attention.”
“While others on campus are debating decisions, he has always stayed
focused on the needs of students,” says Loveland. “High speed printers,
new chairs, new books and databases, free microfilm copies: all were
student suggestions that Cy responded to...I think that the changes he
has made are driven...by staying in tune with students’ needs.”
“Learn what the history is, but don’t become a slave to it,”
Dillon elaborates, “There is little sadder than those intimidated
by technology, who present themselves as purists. Quill pens
aren’t generally the writing tool of choice. Now, neither is a ball point
pen or manual typewriter...A good craftsperson can adjust to the
changing technologies.”
“It’s really exciting to know that our students, in a rural setting,
peaceful surrounding ...still have the information resources they
would have at a Columbia or a University of Virginia. It’s one of the
great things about technology: it lets us feel really first rate, not just
in the service we provide, but in the resources we can use.”
Dillon must be credited for many of those resources, initiating and
fostering higher education cooperative ventures that have benefited
thousands of students. In his first years at Stanley Library, he worked
with Virginia Intermont and Emory and Henry Colleges to form
SWING or Southwest Information Network Group, as a means to
reduce his purchase costs and increase his holdings. SWING is now
one of the largest, multitype library buying consortiums in the United
States, with more than 100 member library systems.
Working through the Virginia Independent College and University
Library Association (VICULA), he brokered a partnership with 16
private colleges around Virginia, allowing each of them access to
more than 6,000 newspapers, magazines and business reports through
the Dow Jones service for only $2,000 annually. Another recent
example, an Appalachian College Association Mellon Grant provided
a phenomenal resource return for member libraries. Investing
only $12,000, Ferrum should reap over $100,000 worth of volumes
and journals.
Although Dillon claims, “I enjoy the leadership role, but I hate to
be the center of attention,” he has acted as a professional pacesetter.
From 1997-1999, he served as the first elected president of VICULA.
He is immediate past president of the Virginia Library Association,
where he represented 1,200 members. He also serves as a library
advocate, lobbying legislators on issues ranging from privacy to
freedom of information concerns.
“For a non-librarian, he’s one of the best librarians I’ve ever
encountered, with an incredible commitment to helping those of us
in the profession,” declares Nan Seamans, director of instruction for
Virginia Tech’s University Libraries. “He’s well-known to many
around the state and the region as a knowledgeable and caring
librarian, as well as a good friend.”
Dillon muses, “I think about this a lot...I don’t think I could have
developed a sense of contributing to an institution in quite the same
way anywhere else, because here I’m not locked into doing one thing.
I’ve been able to participate in so much.”
“Ferrum gave me a chance to discover my real potential, the same
way it does for students like my son, Jim. Here it is, if you can do it.
What an exciting situation to be in! Usually you don’t get that kind
of chance to grow. I have really loved being here for the last 20 years.
...This is the perfect environment.”
FERRUM MAGAZINE 11