Longtime College Librarian Announces Plans to Retire Next Summer
Longtime librarian Leland Park '63 will retire after this academic year concludes.
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9/30/2005
Contact: Bill Giduz 704/894-2244 or bigiduz@davidson.edu
by John Syme ' 85
Leland M. Park ' 63, director of Davidson's E.H. Little Library since 1975, announced last week that he will retire next summer. Park is only the third library director in the history of Davidson College. He follows in the footsteps of his professional mentor and friend, the late Chalmers G. Davidson ' 28, and the late Miss Cornelia Shaw, who assumed administrative duties from the faculty in 1907.
“Working at Davidson keeps you feeling young-and then reminds you that you're not!” Park said of his thirty-nine years on the library staff.
Following a bittersweet morning meeting when he made his announcement to the twenty-eight-member staff that he said he counts as his most important legacy, Park wrote in an email to them: “I hit home runs with each of you. You are the experts in your field and you each do well, and that will be one of the things that will attract a candidate to consider coming here.
“Remember that the situation in this library today is as good as it gets, I do believe: We report to a dean of faculty who knows us, supports us, cares about us, and has humane instincts; a president who has been supportive in so many ways, both obvious and subtle, and genuinely cares; a faculty that now considers you theirs-what an accomplishment!... and a student body that depends on you. It is an amazing situation, one I have never seen before at Davidson.”
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Clark Ross said, “With the retirement of Leland Park, Davidson College loses an extraordinary campus presence. Leland's service to the college has been exemplary. He has overseen the development of a first-rate library staff, one that commands the respect and merits the appreciation of this whole community. Our collection is first-rate, particularly for a school of our size and financial resources. I have a very difficult task ahead of me: finding a suitable successor to Dr. Leland Park.”
The role of the library at Davidson has always been closely integrated with the mission of the college, Park said. For instance, “library usage” is a category of consideration in faculty tenure decisions, and each academic department has a direct say in materials purchased. In recent times, the librarian has even led the way ceremonially, with Park serving as faculty marshal and carrying the college mace in academic processions.
As faculty marshal, Park had the honor of leading the Commencement platform party to the stage.
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It was a freshman history class under Prof. Chalmers Davidson, a descendant of the Revolutionary War General William Lee Davidson for whom the college is named, that instilled Park's own enduring love of the college and its history-and ultimately determined his life's path. He worked for Davidson in the library “for beer and cracker money.” It ultimately led him to earn master's and doctoral degrees in library sciences from Emory University and Florida State University. Meanwhile, Park was also completing his ROTC obligations to the U.S. Army by “keeping the Russians out of Raleigh” for two years. Also during the mid-1960s, he spent a year working as reference librarian in the public library in Charlotte.
“That's really where I developed my philosophy of library customer service,” said Park. “That's the reason the first thing you see when you come in this building is the reference desk, not the circulation desk!”
Park recalled the planning and construction of E.H. Little Library early in his tenure at Davidson. A week after Park arrived on his new job in Grey Memorial Library, President Grier Martin ' 32 announced the intention to build a new library.
“Chalmers said, 'I built the last one, thank you, you can do this one!'” Park recounted, with a burst of his trademark hearty laughter.
Park's career spans a time from when he was the first Davidson College library staff member with an electric typewriter to these days of full digital access to the library's resources for Davidsonians around the globe.
“I used to say we were a nice place and we could help you find things,” Park said. “Now, I say, we can do anything any library anywhere can do, but in a nicer setting and in a more personal way.”
Park welcomed each class of new students to the E. H. Little Library during Orientation.
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The expansion of the library's capabilities complements what Park sees as a broadening and deepening of the college's core educational mission. It is an ongoing evolution from what he terms the more “textbook” education of yore into the more interactive and research-oriented nature of liberal arts studies at Davidson today.
“The faculty have asked for it, and the staff have done it, and now this library staff is an integral part of the educational process at Davidson College,” he said.
In fact, it is the Davidson faculty that is constitutionally charged with responsibility for the library, a vestige of the college's early days when the library was run by faculty members themselves. Today, that charge plays out in a resource-allocation formula that ties a substantial portion of the library's materials purchasing budget to departmental budgets.
“That means that the people who teach, order,” Park said. “They have a vested interest in this library, and it's one of the reasons we are so blessed with such a fine collection. We've still got the green carpet, but we've got excellent materials and resources.
With personal service as a hallmark of the library, Park himself helped many students at the card catalogue.
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The library's original, très ' 70s shade of green carpet has become iconic on the Davidson campus, a symbol of good financial stewardship and a nostalgic in-joke that three and a half decades' worth of alumni “get.” The time will ultimately come for a long-awaited upgrade to the carpet, of course, as well as to other aspects of the building. In that regard, Park said he is happy to be making way for the next person who will safeguard and shape the course of Davidson College's library history.
As for his own retirement itself, Park said, unspecified adventure awaits.
“I haven't ever retired before,” he said. “I haven't even changed jobs in thirty years!”
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