Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 13, 1994 TAG: 9404130101
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Karen Wilson, currently assistant director for state and federal programs with the Virginia State Library and Archives, will start work here May 23.
Wilson, 49, has 28 years of library work experience in Texas and Virginia. "It will be real exciting to be at the grass-roots level," Wilson said by phone Tuesday. "You get immediate feedback."
Wilson manages a $13 million grant program from her Richmond office. Here, she'll take charge of a library system with a headquarters in Christiansburg and branches in Floyd and Blacksburg. It has about 60 employees and an annual budget of more than $900,000. She will be paid $37,906 per year.
Wilson said she was drawn to the job because "it's a real dynamic area," with a heavily used, well-managed library system and an excellent staff.
"We're looking forward to having her," said Library Board Chairwoman Nancy Hurst. "She's highly recommended on all sides."
The board selected Wilson from a field of 29 applicants hailing from all across the country. One application even came from a U.S. territory in the Pacific.
Hurst said the board had several criteria in mind when looking for a new director, including administrative knowledge, work with automation of library services, knowledge of the federal and state grant systems and experience with library expansion.
"We've had experience with her before in connection with grant applications," Hurst said. "We're pleased because she'll need a minimum of time to step in and be current with everything."
The regional library system is facing several challenges in the coming year, chief among them the $1.9 million bond-financed renovation and expansion of the Blacksburg branch.
Though the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors has taken the first steps toward selling the voter-approved bonds this fall for the project, it still awaits the resolution of negotiations between Blacksburg and the county over control of land needed for the expansion.
Part of the bond issue will pay for automation of the library's checkout system. Much of that time-consuming work is now done by hand.
And the library is involved in the ongoing experiment with the Blacksburg Electronic Village, which gives library users access to the Internet.
Wilson holds a master's degree in library science from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. She earned her undergraduate degree in library science and art from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. She said she doesn't have the time to paint these days, but remains an art enthusiast.
Wilson has worked for the Virginia State Library for six years. For eight years before that she worked as a consultant with the Central Texas Library System. She'd earlier spent five years with the Dallas Public Library.
Starting a new job won't be the only major change for Wilson in coming weeks - she'll be changing her last name, too. On April 30, she will marry Cyrus Irvine Dillon III, director of the library at Ferrum College. They will live in Franklin County, on a farm at the foot of Bent Mountain.
Wilson's experience will allow acting Montgomery-Floyd library director Ida Comparin to retire two weeks earlier than planned, Hurst said.
Comparin has been filling in since the Library Board fired former director Carol Veitch in March 1993, a day after she filed suit, claiming the board had placed her on probation and had not allowed her to file a grievance. Veitch withdrew her legal challenge in August. She had served for two years after succeeding Kathryn I. Martens, who resigned in November 1990 after a decade with the library system.
by CNB