Serving Those Who Served: Librarian's Guide to Working with Veteran and Military Communities

by Sarah LeMire

Whether you work in a public library, an academic library, a school library, or any other type of library, you are likely to encounter members of the veteran and military communities. This book is a starting point to help librarians, library administrators, and all library employees understand how veterans, service members, and their families can be different from other patrons, recognize important elements of military and veteran culture, and identify strategies for effectively serving the veteran and military communities. In this book, you find tips to help you determine the size and the needs of the veteran and military communities in your local area. You'll learn about some common information requests and information-seeking behavior of veterans and service members. You'll discover how to take the needs and also the unique strengths of the veteran and military communities into account when developing library outreach efforts, programs, services, and collections. And you'll gain insights to help you harness the knowledge, strengths, and experiences of the veteran and military communities in order to help them fulfill their potential as an asset to the library and to the community.

202 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2015

Reviews

[Danny Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a milspouse and a librarian, I thought this was an excellent distilling of the complex world of veterans and dependents. It gave me some good resources that I hadn’t seen elsewhere and has great suggestions for understanding military communities.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does an excellent job of how to reach out to your Veteran/Military Communities.
It is an introductory to it, but it does so in a very respectful manner.

The book answers common misconceptions, true false questions, and do's and don't type questions about serving the military populace who utilizes the library. It addresses the various branches of the military for better understanding and other categories of the military (like LGBTQ, women, etc).
Then the book is sub-categorized to address this community from a public library, academic library and school library standpoint.

The public library options offer up low-budget ways and website links to 1) find members of the veterans or military community in your area, 2) website and online resources, 3) basic programs like job hunting or history or genealogical research programs for adults or writing projects for those with PTSD, among others 4) outreach ideas like military care packages and other options

The book is very polite, respectful and honest in its approach to best serve this community.
I do think that every library should have a copy of this for their use.

[C. P. Bittick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Sarah LeMire not only taught in military schools, but was a veteran herself, and had children in DODEA schools. She knows 100% of what she's talking about and makes it clear that teachers and administrators must be aware of what the students and parents are going through and how important it is to help create a comfortable, happy, predictable environment at school.