Libraries and the Military/Veteran Population:
Transformative Service Through Cultural Competencies
Our presenters
Sarah LeMire
- First Year Experience and Outreach Librarian, Texas A&M University
- Army veteran
Ingrid Ruffin
- Student Success Librarian for First Year Programs, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
- Air Force veteran
Dawn LaValle
- Connecticut State Library Director of the Division of Library Development
- Marine Corps Veteran
Suggested Resources
- IMLS Community Salute: Serving Veterans Using a Local Collective Impact Approach: Five Resource Documents
- Supporting Veterans and Military Families: Understanding the Community
- Supporting Veterans and Military Families: Identifying Your Role
- Supporting Veterans and Military Families: Partner Snapshot
- Supporting Veterans and Military Families: Stories from the Military Community
- Supporting Veterans and Military Families: How To Begin
- De Moines University Library LibGuide: Cultural Competency in Healthcare
- Connecticut State Library Division of Library Development LibGuide: Service to Veteran and Military Families
Sarah LeMire and Kristen Mulvihill are the co-authors of Serving Those Who Served: Librarian's Guide to Working with Veteran and Military Communities.
Additional Resources
Overview of military culture highlighting the basics of organizational structure; branches of service; rank chart; core values; distinctions between active and reserve designation to help service providers to understand the military community.
- Military Cultural Competence Tutorial. This resource is an interactive online course which provides a more in depth instructional overview of military culture.
- Center for Deployment Psychology Military Cultural Competence Online Course. This resource adapts NIH's guide to understanding the differences in cultures, encouraging the importance of respecting the uniqueness of the military experience.
- NIH Cultural Respect
Additional links exploring and understanding military culture:
Libraries and Veterans: A Literature Review
Arzola, R. (2012). Academic libraries supporting the research needs of student veterans: A bibliography. Codex, 2(2), 78-93.
Atwood, T., Farmer, M., McDonald, K., Miller, B., Theodore-Shusta, E., & Wood, E. J. (2016). On the front lines: Serving Ohio's best. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 42(2), 172-180. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2015.12.011
Helton, R. (2010). Diversity dispatch: Libraries—An important campus partner for student veterans. Kentucky Libraries, 74(3), 14-15.
Landers, M. J., & Youngman, D. C. (2009). Academic libraries on the front lines: Advancing the library through a partnership with the U.S. Army. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 16(2/3), 211-220.
LeMire, S., & Mulvihill, K. J. (2017). Serving those who served: Librarian's guide to working with veteran and military communities. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Lynch, J. (2008). Providing library services to deployed Army medical providers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Journal of Hospital Librarianship, 8(2), 218-229.
Mills, C. P., Paladino, E. B., & Klentzin, J. C. (2015). Student veterans and the academic library. Reference Services Review, 43(2), 262-279. doi:10.1108/RSR-10-2014-0049
Murphy, E. W. (2009). Delivery to the sharp end of the spear: Responding to the need for library support to the deployed and downrange military community. Journal of Library Administration, 49(1/2), 51-57.
Roy, L., Barker, M., Hidalgo, L. L., & Rickard, F. A. (2016). Public library services for veterans: Selected brief case studies. Public Library Quarterly, 35(3), 222-242. doi:10.1080/01616846.2016.1210452
Samson, S. (2017). Student veterans in the academic library. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 24(1), 80-89. doi:10.1080/10691316.2015.1125318
Whited, C., & Frederick, G. (2015). Embedded with the military: It's all about the relationships. Journal of Library & Information Services In Distance Learning, 9(1/2), 179-187. doi:10.1080/1533290X.2014.946358
Witteveen, A. (2016). At your service: returning veterans face some unique challenges; libraries can help them feel at home. Library Journal, 141(18). 22-25.