Clay-Edward Dixon Appointed Director of Library Services

The Graduate Theological Union is pleased to announce that Clay-Edward Dixon has been appointed Director of Library Services of the GTU’s Flora Lamson Hewlett Library. Dixon has served as the library’s interim director since the March 2016 retirement of Robert Benedetto, and has been the library’s head of collection development since 2000.

Dixon is a seasoned librarian with more than 26 years of professional experience in technical and public services at a variety of public and private institutions. Before coming to the GTU, he served at the Ryan Memorial Library of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, PA; the Library of Virginia in Richmond, VA; and the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He holds a Master’s of Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as an MA in Historical and Systematic Theology from Loyola University.

During the nationwide search for a new director, the search committee was impressed with Clay-Edward’s forward thinking regarding the future of libraries, his role in both the creation of the GTU Library’s Collaborative Learning Space and the increasing digitization of its library resources, and his vision for meeting the unique challenges the GTU faces in its effort to become an even more interreligious and interdisciplinary graduate school.

Announcing Clay-Edward Dixon’s appointment, GTU President Riess Potterveld stated, “The Flora Lamson Hewlett Library stands at the center of the GTU’s educational programs, providing curated resources to students throughout the GTU and its member schools. Statistics indicate that the GTU library is one of the most heavily utilized theological libraries in the US. But libraries, like all institutions, are changing and adapting to different demands and needs. In Clay-Edward, we have found a leader sensitive to traditional uses of the library and one who thinks ahead to the new possibilities on the horizon.” Dixon will assume his new post on July 1, 2017.

The Graduate Theological Union’s Flora Lamson Hewlett Library is one of the largest circulating theological libraries in the United States. Together with its branch at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, the library holds more than 520,000 volumes, more than 1100 periodical subscriptions, and 295,000 non-book holdings; An average of 5,000 new titles are added each year.