>> JENNIFER: We've created a learner guide for today's session. 

It's a way for you to extend your learning on the topic. 

You can do so with perhaps a group of folks at your library, maybe some fellow partners on this work. 

You can customize the guide to make it work for you if you have specific steps or specific goals that you'd like to set. 

You can make those your own on the form. 

So we encourage you to check that out after the session as well. 

And I'm going to go ahead and shift on over to our presentation, practical strategies for engaging veteran and military-affiliated patrons at your library. 

I'm going to welcome our lead collaborator, Sarah LeMire -- 

LeMire, LeMire -- LeMire who is the associate professor at Texas A&M University and has been leading this work. 

I'm going to let Sarah Sarah introduce the rest of our presents. 

>> SARAH: I'm Sarah, an a professor at Texas A&M University and an army veteran. 

I'm going to briefly introduce my esteemed colleagues who are with me today. 

Dawn LaValle is the director for the division of library development at Connecticut State Library. 

Christy Billings is a program coordinator at the Russell Library in Middletown, Connecticut. 

And Lee Ann Amend is the director of the Sharon Public Library in Massachusetts. 

So thanks to all of them for joining me today and excited to have you all here and looking forward to hearing your questions and hearing about what you all are doing too. 

Just to give us a little bit of a framework to start out, one of the questions that I hear a lot when I talk about working with veterans and libraries is why?

Why work with veteran and military patrons?

Why this population?

Not just from library folks who are interested in hearing this answer for themselves, but also looking at how I can pitch this to my library director, to mile  -- my supervisor, how I can make the case for this work?

One of the ways I like to start that case is with numbers. 

Getting a sense of how many folks, how many veteran and military-affiliated folks are there?

And they're going to be found in all of our communities. 

Looking at active duty, folks who are serving full time in the military and their family members, you've got almost 3 million folks who are going to be concentrated on those military installations. 

But even if you're far away from the military installation, you're going to have veterans and service members and their families in your community. 

There are almost 2 million reservists and national guard members who may be living far away from their post, counting the service members and their families there. 

And then 18.5 million veterans, plus their families.

They can be virtually everywhere. 

So when we're thinking about veteran and military populations, we're not just talking about towns outside of those military -- military posts, but we're talking about every community. 

The other reason I like to think about why is because veteran and military populations can be different than other civilian populations. 

Just to give a little bit of a sense of some of the ways that there can be differences, during that transition moment, so when someone is transitioning out of the military, that can be a bit of a stark change. 

Military has a lot of wraparound support, so it's not just a job, but it's housing, it's your meals, it's your health care, it's your child care, it's your social group. 

So when you leave the military, often you're leaving all of that behind. 

And for some folks, it may be the first time that they have to find a civilian job, that they're finding civilian housing, that they're finding civilian health care. 

So there can be this moment of transition of trying to figure out how to navigate a totally different structure. 

So that's one area where there can be differences. 

Another one can be travel and separation. 

Even during peace time, travel and separation are an integral part of the military experience.

You're always getting sent for a training or for a temporary duty assignment. 

And so families are always dealing with this -- this separation, and it's not always super fun. 

People look for distractions, you know, wanting to have something to read or to watch to help fill the hours. 

As someone who's not just a veteran but also a military spouse, right, having something to kind of distract and kind of keep the family going while my partner is deployed or is away is also really valuable. 

So that can be another way that the veteran and military populations are different. 

And just to give one more quick one, military has this strong sense of camaraderie, it's part of that wraparound experience that you're serving with other folks who have gone through the same kind of intense kind of bonding experience. 

You have this shared experience that gives you a shared lingo, it gives you, right, this kind of shared sense of this is -- 

this is like -- it's like a string of inside jokes in some ways, that you're not the only one who knows what this is like.

You don't have to explain. 

You don't have to explain the terminology. 

You don't have to explain what this experience is like. 

So you have that all around you when you're in the military. 

But when you leave, you -- you don't and you lose that connection. 

And that can be really disorienting and it can be kind of isolating. 

I think that true for service members and veterans, but also for their families, that, you know, my kids were the only ones in their elementary school who had a family member who had deployed. 

No one else understand what's that experience is like. 

That can be a way that veteran and military populations can be different. 

In all of these ways, are ways that libraries with play a role in helping with those transitions and that sense of camaraderie. 

That's a lot of what we're going to talk about today. 

I'm going to and that off here to Dawn who is going to talk about this from a state library perspective. 

>> Dawn: I oversee a statewide division of library development who oversees services resources, training for all academic school, public, and special libraries. 

And as Sarah talked about the why, we're going to talk about how. 

So we know that there's these needs in the military and veteran community, so how do we approach providing services and resources and programming for them?

At the statewide level -- I want to mention that I think many of you in your libraries might have veterans on your staff or family members of veterans or family members of military. 

We're everywhere. 

I have a staff member Brad who is my consultant for digital content and innovation who is a veteran of the Air Force and he does a lot of work at the state level with veterans. 

But he also did work when he was at his previous library. 

So what do we do at the statewide level?

I know many of you are very familiar with your state libraries and all the resources that they provide for you. 

We do a lot to be able to create these almost like turn-key programs for you. 

So we developed statewide partnerships with the military department or the Veterans Administration. 

Under my division we have the Connecticut Library which services blind and physically disabled persons and many of our patrons are veterans.

They happen to be concentrated down around the South Shore of Connecticut in. 

>> We do a lot of training at the state level in many different ways. 

We have custom training that we develop and we also take advantage of Web Junction and all of our resources to provide training for libraries and providing these services. 

Some of that training might be as Sarah mentioned in the military there's camaraderie. 

We're used to people having our six, having our back. 

We do training with librarians to talk about cultural competencies, talking about the military lingo and expectations and things of that nature. 

So librarians and library staff feel comfortable in, you know, approaching this very special community. 

We developed programming. 

We developed programming to -- 

for example, in Connecticut we do a lot of statewide programs that are easily represent pla cable. 

It's almost like handing over a turnkey program. 

I have our LibGuides, a shameless post for that. 

Everything that we do in the veterans community is on our LibGuides. 

We also develop tools and resources. 

So we have a wide range of resources covering everything from benefits, including the most recent pact act for veterans. 

Those a most recent program going on million veteran project. 

So we provide every type of resources from education to jobs, hire event program to finance to health. 

We create and consolidate almost like a clearinghouse of these resources and tools so that our librarians when they are working with their communities, they know, wait, I know that the state library has a whole LibGuide on finance it the a lot of what we do is to almost create these ready to go programs, to have these resources that are available at hand that can be easily taken and use to serve every community. 

One of our statewide programs is all Connecticut reads. 

It's an inclusive program that we try to reach every resident in the State of Connecticut. 

When we do this particularly for our library of accessible books, we have a program that provides these same resources and tools for veterans to participate, for families to participate. 

So creating inclusive statewide programs that everyone can participate in that are ready to go is just really wonderful type of way to reach that community. 

Because we don't want to feel like, you know, when we go into a library we don't want to be --

a veteran does not want to be shoved off into a little section that's for military people. 

It's about being invited and included into the community, which I pretty -- I think that the library community can almost replicate that camaraderie that veterans feel when serving. 

One of our signature programs is State of Connecticut Military Saves Week. 

So if you're familiar with the financial literacy program through the Federal Reserve and through -- through ALA, there's also the Military Saves Month. 

So what we did, and Brad is spearheading this program and it's pretty much -- it's not just a month, we approach it as an entire year of financial services to veterans and military families. 

You know, basic finance. 

Because if you come out of the military, and Sarah knows this, we're very used to having things done in a very different way, disbursement, we have commissaries, we have different kind of benefits that are not available to the average American. 

And when you're out in the regular community, you don't have those special PXs and commissaries anymore. 

So it's beginning to learn how to manage your finances outside of that military culture. 

So we run this basically all year, but it's a special month. 

And it's something that's national. 

So any state, any library in the country can participate in a program of this nature. 

And I also mentioned that we have in the division of library development in the state library we have state resources for engaging blind and physically disabled veterans. 

One of the things that we have partnerships, my director for the library for the blind works directly with our VA hospitals and connecting visually impaired veterans with assistive technology so they can read books, so they can participate in programs and developing book clubs for our visually impaired veterans. 

So there's a lot of different things you can do at, you know, your state library or your large library systems can create these statewide, these regional programs that you can participate in. 

So that's, as Sarah said earlier, it's the why. 

Well, this is the start of the how. 

So I'm very -- very pleased to turn over the session to Lee Ann. 

>> LEE ANN: Well, thank you very much, Dawn. 

Good afternoon, everybody. 

My name is Lee Ann Amend and I'm the library director for the Sharon Public Library and I am a United States Coast Guard reserve veteran. 

My presentation will provide you with a list of guidelines in planning for an initial program for veterans and military families. 

These guidelines are geared toward public libraries, but they may be able to be modified for an academic or other type of library setting. 

The first step in learning about military families in your community would be to contact your local veterans' agent. 

The agent may be able to reach this target audience on your behalf to let them know about any services or programs that you would be offering. 

So where do you begin?

The first thing is you're going to need to choose your audience.

You'll have a couple of choices.

And the first set are the Vietnam veterans or what I'm calling the post-Vietnam veterans are those veterans that served in desert storm, shield, operation Iraqi freedom and so on. 

The things that you really want to know about your two veteran groups if you're going to start programming for these groups have most of your Vietnam vets are retired, they're living on a fixed income and they do have time to enjoy free programming.

They tend to enjoy military history or other historical topics. 

Daytime program is always easier for the older population, and they definitely appreciate being thanked for their service. 

And they are willing to talk about experiences with other veterans. 

The post Vietnam vets, remember, most of them are working and they have families. 

Many of them to do not feel comfortable being thanked for their service and don't consider themselves heroes. 

Most prefer not to talk about their experiences. 

Many suffer from PTSD and other physical and emotional issues and have difficulty applying for VA benefits.

They don't know what libraries have to offer, and they generally don't use them. 

In a conversation I had with one of our veterans, he said he thinks of public libraries as what his great grandmother used to do back 50 years ago. 

So you do need to educate and inform, and we're going to talk a little bit about that as we go through the slides. 

So the first thing you want to do when you're trying to figure out what kind of programs that you want to plan is to secure your funding. 

And there are a lot of sources for funding. 

And I've listed a few of them, and you may have others. 

LSTA funding is available for veterans' programming. 

Library Services and Technology Act. 

There's also humanities funding, your state or national humanities group will also provide funding for your programming. 

And don't forget to contact your local cultural council. 

The grants may not be large, but very often they're very easy to get. 

And also for those of you in public libraries, remember the friends of the public library because not only can they provide the funding for your programming, but they are also an excellent volunteer group and you might need their help if you're planning any particular program. 

And I'm going to talk more about what I'm calling an icebreaker program that you could start off with. 

And in that particular program, I utilized my local businesses and restaurants. 

And when I did that, I provided some of their menus and I also reminded them that they could claim tax credit for the donations that they made. 

Other funding might be your own budget. 

You may have a programming budget. 

And there are also private grants. 

But that will at least give you an idea of where to begin with funding. 

So now you're going to plan your program. 

You want to design your first program for military families. 

As my predecessors have said, we're talking about, you know, you want to get the largest audience you can. 

The veterans may send a family member or somebody else to test the waters and find out what's going on. 

So just be prepared for that. 

But you do want to learn who they are in your community and the type of programming and services that they would be most interested in. 

And like I said, expect the parents, the grandparents, siblings, spouses, and children of veterans to attend. 

This has happened to me several times and I was very happy to be able to touch base with these folks and give them an idea of all the programming that we have been doing. 

Create a program that will appeal to all ages. 

And ask for volunteers. 

Remember to choose a time and a date that doesn't coincide with any of the town-wide or sports program. 

Remember the post Vietnam vets are working, so always keep that in mind. 

And of course, as we all know, we have to promote and publicize. 

We have to let everybody know, especially if this is a program that you haven't run before, you want to reach every area you can. 

So create your informational flyers, your brochures, send information out through your social and local media. 

A lot of the veterans I've spoken to still are on Facebook even though I know that's moving a little bit toward Tiktok and other types of social media. 

Send information to the schools.

Reach out to the parent-teacher organizations, and definitely contact your local veterans' organizations in your town. 

And other groups. 

Create a patron program registration form. 

  Anytime you run any kind of a program, make sure people register it. 

This is how you're going to build your contact list and you're going to keep that for future use. 

And this is your opportunity to educate and inform. 

Remember that veterans and their families may not know what libraries offer. 

So create an information brochure or a packet of information for all ages. 

Display your technology and other library of things items that patrons can check out. 

I want to give you an example of that. 

A lot of public libraries have what they call library of things or objects that folks can check out in the community. 

This is an example of one that we have. 

We have a whole, you know laptop with headphones or webcam for veterans or for that matter any patron can check out if they need it. 

We have musical instruments hotspots. 

We have headphones, eReaders, tools, sewing kits. 

We also have grab and go craft kits for children. 

We have movies for all ages. 

And books on VA benefits, as I mentioned before, very often you will find that a lot of the veterans have a great deal of difficulty applying for veterans' benefits. 

So gather information. 

Create a survey asking questions about the services, programs, and information that military families would attend. 

Include questions about timing of your event, special speakers and so on. 

I suggest reaching out to your veterans' benefit experts and have them come in and do a program for the community. 

This is extremely helpful. 

I think you're going to find that you will get several the veterans coming out to find out how to do this. 

And don't forget your college admission counselors. 

Very often veterans don't realize there is funding available for college. 

Distribute and request that it be completed before leaving the event. 

And I'm going to talk about this event very shortly. 

Create a sign-up sheet for those interested in joining a library-sponsored veterans club.

In every library that I have worked at for the past 50 to 20 years, I have started a veterans' club right off the bat. 

And I have never been disappointed. 

Let them know that they can also have the opportunity to work with you to help plan and host other events. 

So the program that I used as an icebreaker program, which I think would be adapted for anything that you might want to do, is everybody loves music and food. 

So here's where we hired a band and most of my people came from our local community. 

So we hired a band. 

You can hire a deejay also, they don't need to play for long. 

Maybe only a half an hour or so.

But you want to be able to bring them in and get people comfortable. 

And have the local restaurants provide appetizer donations for the event. 

Put out their menus. 

Remind them of their tax deduction. 

Provide beverages for your program. 

Make sure you have a host for the program to announce your program activities. 

This person might be one of your veterans, or maybe even somebody from your local veterans' affairs office. 

And don't forget to invite the local veterans' affairs officers and other members because they're going to want to meet these folks and also distribute some of their information. 

And again, I can't reiterate this enough, partner with your friends of the library organization. 

You're going to need the volunteers. 

And when they see how well this works out, they're going to be there to support you with further funding for more programming. 

And because we want to make sure this is going to be for all ages, have children make themed decorations during your story time or craft sessions like a month before. 

And then hang them up for the event so that the parents can come, maybe be a part of this and see their children's artwork. 

 Every parent is proud of their children's work, so this may be an opportunity to bring in more people. 

Plan activities for children in the children's room or other space. 

You're going to separate out. 

You're going to have the kids busy in one area of the library while you're having, you know, sort of a discussion or having people meet each other in the adult section. 

Don't forget about your teens and tweens. 

If you have a youth advisory council or committee, inclued them in this event and let them come up for ideas for kids in their age group. 

And don't forget to provide snacks. 

Any time you bring them in for a meeting, make sure you feed them.

They all love to have something to chew on while they're thinking. 

Make sure all participants fill out the survey instrument before they leave for your event itself. 

And don't forget to thank everyone for their participation. 

And my last slide is a reminder about thanking everyone and this is an example of one of the programs that I ran myself and I utilized members of the chamber orchestra, our community chorus, and other artists within our community. 

And I also included the local town to provide music for us. 

This cost us nothing. 

All of these groups did this for nothing for our event. 

I think that you'll find out that once you get them in through your doors and you find out what you need to find out, you have the opportunity to show them what you have to offer. 

I know you'll have a successful veterans' program. 

With that, I'm going to send it over to our next speaker, Christy. 

>> CHRISTY: Thanks, Lee Ann. 

So I'm going to talk a little bit about building successful partnerships. 

But I just want to reiterate what some of the phenomenal things that we've just heard about. 

You don't have to reinvent the wheel. 

Definitely steal or borrow some of these ideas that you're hearing today. 

And I just want to encourage you if you think that you can start a veterans' group, yes, you can.

You can start a group and it will be successful. 

I know at the beginning when I was looking at starting one myself, I had some doubts. 

I had community partners that were unsure that this was going to be something that was going to be successful. 

And it has been one of our most -- one of our longest running and most impactful programs. 

So our group is called we were there. 

And we've been meeting since 2012. 

This group has participants from all branches of service and we have men and women in our group.

So I'll talk just quickly about some of the partnerships that we have. 

Community reads our one book one middletown. 

The Community Foundation of Middlesex county, Connecticut humanities. 

And we have a partnership with our local elementary school. 

We've had a discussion with our fourth graders and our veterans.

So I can't do this all by myself. 

I have a great facilitator, partner in crime, Liz Petry. 

Her husband is the commander for our local VFW, so that was a big help in the beginning. 

Liz had taught college English 101 and is a writer herself. 

So she had some great experience for us to tap into. 

So how this all started was our one book, community read. 

It was unbroken. 

If you have not had a chance to read this, I highly recommend it. 

It's a great book. 

There had been an article in the American libraries magazine called helping warriors unleash the power of the pen. 

So we used that model to create a three-week session, three sessions, with Liz. 

And we had three different prompts, one for each week. 

It was only supposed to last for three weeks. 

Our prompts, the first was a person you admire. 

The second was a memorable event or place. 

The third was cultural differences encount ird. 

 -- encountered. 

And we had our writers read a little bit of the section in the book.

They didn't have to read the entire book of unbroken if they didn't care to. 

I think everyone did eventually.

And they wrote, they wrote from the prompt. 

And as we finished our three-week session, they asked if we could continue doing this.

They had thoroughly enjoyed the interactions with each other and the process of writing. 

So we needed some funding. 

So we looked to our Community Foundation of Middlesex County. 

The Community Foundation is dedicated to improving quality of life and they have grants for nonprofits but have a positive impact in the community. 

And it's a very broad type of grant, so we were able to ask for assistance in having several different types of programming, including weekly sessions, and also to compile our -- our writer's work together and have it bound into a book that they could utilize and hand out to friends. 

We've since been writing a lot longer so we have more items compiled into a bigger book. 

But the Community Foundation was our first stop. 

So we met prior to Covid in person. 

We would have an agenda. 

People would bring things to share.

They would -- they were all very active members in veterans' organizations. 

So I've listed here some of the things that we utilized. 

We certainly didn't use all of these every session. 

We would meet for an hour and a half once a week. 

So Liz and I would find articles or an excerpt of a podcast, sometimes a short YouTube video.

At the end we would have 30 minutes for people to write about a prompt. 

Everyone was always encouraged to write about anything that they wished, but I would say 99.9% of the time people wrote about the prompt. 

So these are some of our writers. 

At this point, we've had writers from World War II, the Korean Conflict, one gentleman from Afghanistan, and currently most of our writers are Vietnam era. 

This is Jenn Glick. 

In the center we have gene Sullivan who has since passed. 

He was a veteran from the Korean Conflict. 

At the bottom is Harvey Goldstein, army. 

We call him our spy. 

He was -- I'm sorry, he was Air Force, not army. 

And then on the other side you can see sort of the setting, folks would come together and we would have some time to converse. 

We would have them have time to write. 

And then Liz would critique their writings and hand them back the following week. 

Anyone that wished could read their writing out loud and people would offer constructive criticism. 

Not criticism, constructive comments. 

We had a great partnership and still do with Connecticut Humanities. 

Author Craig Grossi came to visit us with his dog Fred. 

Craig smuggled Fred out of Afghanistan when he left after serving his tour. 

And we had a session that was public for people to come to the greater Middletown military museum and see all the great artifacts and things they have there and hear the stories at the military museum. 

And then we had a separate session where the writers could talk about their process with Craig. 

And of course with Fred. 

It was a wonderful session, and I think everyone got so much out of it on both sides. 

At the military museum there is a statute to Sergeant Stubby. 

Sergeant Stubby was a real dog who served in World War I. 

This gave us an idea, because there's a great book called G.I.

dogs dogs. 

We partnered with Lawrence School in Middletown, and we did discussions with the entire fourth grade. 

It was virtual because obviously right now is not the best time for some medically fragile folks to be getting together with little ones or younger ones. 

So we met via Zoom. 

But we had the opportunity to meet with all the fourth grade classes and have the kids talk with the veterans about what they thought about the book, ask questions. 

One young man had fad -- we have Vance Fischer who was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and one man asked him about the technology that they used on their helicopters in Vietnam. 

And of course they didn't have that technology. 

It was a great time for folks to get together and have a jumping off point to discuss. 

The schools had also told us that during the pandemic the students' writing skills had suffered, the fine motor coordination skills. 

So the kids wrote letters by hand to the veterans, and it was a good opportunity for them to practice some of those writing skills. 

So one of our folks, this is Jerry Augustin, army, Vietnam, 196th light infantry brigade. 

He said I almost lost my life six times. 

I feel I had a guardian angel and made it home. 

There's I reason a help out now with veterans. 

Thank you for letting me help out veterans and look forward to helping you with your writing group and starting your own. 

Look forward to if you have any questions. 

Thank you. 

>> SARAH: So thanks so much, Christy, for sharing all of that. 

You know, the kinds of programs and initiatives that Dawn and Christy and Lee Ann have described are really groundbreaking, right?

They're leading the way through libraries and showing how libraries can be supportive of veterans. 

But I think my feeling when we started this project, the libraries and veterans project, was that, you know, there's not a lot of information about these kind of programs. 

We know that people are doing this work, but unless you've talked to Christy, unless you've talked to Lee Ann, you might not know about this. 

And you know, I am a big fan of the idea that, you know, if it worked at one library it might work at another and we don't always have to start from scratch. 

We don't always have to reinvent the wheel. 

And even if you're not at a public library, you can lift up something that somebody else is doing and adapt it for your own library environment. 

And so that was really the idea of, let's make a toolkit so that we can make getting started with this kind of work easier and we can share our ideas so we are not always trying to scrounge up, right, a new idea. 

And you know, I don't know if all of you are like me, I was like I love the idea of, right, bringing Sergeant Stubby out and talking to fourth graders. 

I have a fourth grader, she would love that. 

It's brilliant. 

It's a great idea. 

Why wouldn't that work at another library?

So that's where the toolkit came from. 

So the toolkit, which came out of the libraries and veterans national forum project, was created by a group of librarians, actually five groups of librarians from all kinds of libraries around the country. 

So we had public librarians, and Lee Ann you were part of that group. 

We had -- Dawn had a group of kind of miscellaneous librarians. 

We had a group of academic librarians. 

Group of -- the A librarians, and we asked them to share what they're doing. 

To write it down in a way that we could -- you could search for it, brainstorm, you know, and use it as a brainstorming tool. 

So at the end what we have is I think at this point we have about 80 different entries into the toolkit and it has things like lesson plans for those of us at academic libraries. 

Ideas for exhibits and displays.

Ideas for programs like you're doing -- like Lee Ann's -- the music event. 

Lee Ann, you added that one to the toolkit. 

Collection of development ideas.

If you're looking for ideas on books you could add to your collection, display, best practices, things like that are all together in one place so that you can search for it, browse, explore, get ideas, and bring that to your library director and say hey, let's try this thing, it's all written out for me. 

The toolkit searchable and browsable so you can browse by the type of library. 

If you're looking for folks that are -- or you're looking for things that are appropriate for an academic library or looking for things that are appropriate for a school library, you can sort in those ways. 

If you're looking for a particular type of program, maybe you are looking for a displace or you're looking for some kind of veterans' celebration. 

You can sort in those ways. 

You can sort by type of audience. 

You can do something aimed at little, little kids versus high schoolers. 

Maybe you're looking for military children or military spouses or military cadets. 

And then finally you can sort by topic. 

If you're looking for something to do for financial literacy, for Military Saves Month, you can look for financial literacy materials. 

You can look for things related to mental health, things related to music. 

So we have it sorted in a variety of ways. 

The toolkit is -- it's posted been LibGuides, so it should be, I guess, relatively familiar as a platform. 

The QR Code and the -- and the link both go to the same place. 

It is also a living document. 

So we want to continue to gather stories, to gather those ideas of programs that you could do. 

So if you have something you're doing at your library, we would love to have you submit it to the toolkit and let us add that so somebody else can take that idea and run with it. 

Everything in the toolkit is either creator comments licensed or in the public domain so it can be reused and then resubmitted. 

You know, you took this idea and changed it and you want to share that back out, please do so. 

We really want this to be a resource and a place where we can gather all kinds of ways that we can get started working with the military community. 

And not just get started too, because I've been doing this for a while now and I still get new ideas from it. 

I'm like, how could I adapt that for my library?

Because who doesn't need a new idea, right?

And why not -- why not share those ideas so that we can make things easier, but also kind of bring that -- that strength of many to the project and to working with veterans and military families. 

Okay. 

So finally I want to thank our sponsors. 

So the libraries and veterans national forum project was sur tessy of IMLS for which we are incredibly grateful. 

And finally I'll open it up for questions. 

What questions do folks have?

And I would say in addition to questions, if you have stories and projects that you want to share, please do drop those in the chat as well. 

>> Yes, we've got ample time for more questions. 

I've collected some excellent questions for us to begin. 

There was a comment, I'll address this because I see Chris mentioned it as well. 

There was a question about military card readers and I know that, Sarah, you said that some libraries either have CAC readers at their computers or that can check them out as like a library of things. 

Can you all talk a little bit about what that is for those of us who aren't familiar with that?

>> SARAH: Sure. 

So it's a common access card or a CAC reader is one of the ways that when you're logging into like your military accounts, it's a card reader for your ID card. 

And it plugs into the computer. 

And so if you have folks who are currently serving, a lot of times they will need access to that card reader in order to go in and, you know, access their files and whatnot. 

A lot of service members will have a CAC reader, but it is especially a lot of places where a lot of folks would need access to it, it would be helpful to have that available. 

I work at a university and I know that university campuses it's pretty common for the campus veterans' center to have a computer with a CAC reader installed. 

CAC readers, they require certain software to function. 

But they should be able to be used on a variety of computers. 

So a lot of the folks that do this work will either check it out so folks can install it on whichever computer they're sitting at, or they may have a particular computer that's set up to be the CAC reader if that's easier so they only have to install it on a single computer. 

But like my husband had a CAC reader, whatever computer he was at he would go in and install whatever he needed so that he could log in. 

>> JENNIFER: Excellent. 

That's helpful info. 

As we know having information and knowing their experience can be a great way for us to connect. 

So if they come, now you have a little bit more information about that. 

So I'd say the toolkit is filled with that kind of information. 

Some of those details around their experiences. 

There was a great question about do you have ripped with military spouses clubs?

And I know someone mentioned that, yes, that's a great way to partner with spouses clubs or family readiness groups. 

I'm not sure what that is so someone can speak to what a family readiness group is. 

Especially obviously for libraries near military installations, but perhaps in other areas where there are military spouse networks. 

So can -- I'd let all -- I'm sure many of you have experience with military spouses, so let's talk a little bit about that. 

>> DAWN: So we partner with the blue Star Families, which is a national organization that was developed by -- put together by military spouses to strengthen military communities. 

And I met the previous president of that organization way back when IMLS had the first of their veterans' leadership forums where they brought together, you know, Department of Defense and all the different organizations, military organizations around the country. 

But blue star families is pretty much a national, accessible, wonderful resources, wonder professional grams. 

But of course you have ones around your libraries. 

It's a matter of reaching out if you have a military installation, whether it be, you know, reserve or like we have the subbase here to reach out and make connections with your local military communities to find out if they have an auxiliary or a committee or things of that nature. 

>> JENNIFER: That's a great reminder even just reaching out to those organizations to have a conversation. 

A reminder that we don't have to do outreach that's like what can you library do for you. 

It's a matter of starting that conversation about what they're doing, finding out some of the interests of the groups or the people they're intersecting with. 

So don't be afraid to just have those conversations. 

Any other input on the military wives question?

Or spouses question. 

>> SARAH: I just agree with everything -- everything you all said. 

I think there can just be some variation from one community to another as to what organizations are active. 

And that, I think, is true both of military spouses, family readiness group kind of thing. 

Family readiness group is what we call in the army that kind of -- like the official group of -- that coordinates military spouses and all of that. 

But depending on the community, it may be that that's not super active but a different group is active. 

So getting a sense of which groups are really -- are really working in your community can be a helpful place to start for those kind of partnerships that Christy was talking about. 

>> 

>>. 

>> JENNIFER: That's fantastic. 

I had a quick question about the writing group. 

Do you have writers in the group that have been with the group since the founding in 2012?

>> CHRISTY: We do. 

We have -- we have lost one of our members who was World War II. 

But three of our members -- four of our members were there since the beginning. 

>> JENNIFER: That's so great. 

I just love that story. 

You know, over ten years. 

What a fantastic group. 

There's a fantastic kind of long question in chat I'd like to hear from folks, I think this is really important, it's actually something that we see with all of the partnerships. 

Sometimes you may be providing similar kind of programming or doing some of the other organizations or veterans' clubs specifically are doing in your community. 

So is there a way to approach or work with or, you know, how you approach the work that you do without stepping on partners' toes?

You know, obviously military libraries like other libraries are struggling to stay open and relevant so we don't want to, you know, step on other toes. 

So I'm sure that you have some stories about how that's hopefully worked successfully to address some of those tensions around multiple resources or -- 

or, yeah, the different partners. 

>> Well I could probably address some of that in the public library setting. 

What I try to do is to get in contact with the local VA groups. 

Usual flip our veterans' groups focus on Memorial Day and Veterans' Day activity. 

And anything beyond that, which we also partner with in the library as well. 

But anything beyond that that we might do, we always include them for any kind of programming. 

So we actually do a collaboration. 

And a lot of our ideas also come from the local veterans' groups and organizations. 

And again funding. 

And when you have more than one group working together, funding is often easier to get and you get more of it. 

So it works out pretty well. 

>> JENNIFER: Anybody else want to speak to how that's worked for them?

Okay. 

I want to -- go ahead. 

>> SARAH: I think Dawn was speaking but was muted. 

>> DAWN: I was of course talking while muted. 

Tried to get through an entire presentation without doing that but I did it so yea. 

We reach out and we reach out in a way to find out how we can work together and by having meetings, coming together, collaborating and seeing how we can enhance their services, how they can take advantage of our services, how they can reach, I mean, it's really a matter of, you know, sitting down and having that conversation to see how we can work together. 

Fortunately most agencies don't have libraries so we have that wonderful opportunity to provide something that they do not have.

But as I mentioned with our resources, we -- we always go in there with the perspective of how we can, you know, spread their word. 

How we can help them get into communities that they may not be able to get into it the at the might be working on in vacuums instead of a military base or a very small area. 

But we can get them into the communities. 

We can get more access. 

We can get them also, we talk about making them more visible and more accessible for those who may not even be aware. 

And many veterans that come out of the military, they're transitioning and they're not even aware of the benefits toward them. 

So we try to create a mutually collaborative benefit for each of us and really makes that a strong point. 

>> JENNIFER: Sounds great. 

We recently have collaborated with the VA's team that works on suicide prevention and collected resources related to that and hosted a webinar with them as well. 

This is another area I think sometimes if you're approaching opportunities for collaboration related to health and wellness, sometimes that can be a great way for you to offer a channel to get their information out to your community. 

So you know, partnerships can look like all different kinds of things. 

It could be just a matter of making sure you have information, you know, at your reference desk or on your site. 

So remember that it can be baby steps too, as well. 

Sarah, I wonder if you can speak a little bit, I know that on the forum site there is a community tab that suggests how people can connect to others. 

I know there's an ALA connection with the veterans' caucus. 

Can you just talk about how folks both contributing to the toolkit, a reminder that the toolkit is continuing to develop, your contributions of the work that you're doing, some of you who shared in chat, I noted a couple folks mentioned they've recorded military voices, stories, as a part of their stopper core initiative. 

That's a great example of the kinds of programming. 

We'll make sure to include that link in the resources. 

And then somebody else mentioned they started a quarter veterans social program to bring people into the program. 

So don't be shy and share those ideas in the toolkit. 

Sarah, can you talk about how folks are connecting around veterans' services?

>> SARAH: Absolutely. 

What we're trying to do is build that sense of community. 

We have -- the toolkit is there, it's living. 

Please, if you're doing something with your organization, please share it out. 

We really want to make sure that we're representing as much of this work as we can and making sure that, you know, everyone's got great ideas, let's put those all together in one place and share it out. 

But the other way that we're trying to build a sense of community is by bringing together the folks who are doing this work. 

And also the folks who are veterans themselves who are working in libraries. 

And so that's where ALA's veteran caucus group is kind of -- came to be. 

That group is in ALA connect. 

We do meet at ALA annual every year. 

And we encourage folks who are interested to join. 

It's not going to spam you with lots and lots of messages, it's a fairly quiet group, back up it is a place where you can say hey, I'm trying to come up with something, do you have any suggestions. 

Or hey, here's an idea. 

I want to run it past folks who are veterans to say does this sound like something folks would be interested in. 

There is a place for that. 

And we want to open that door and encourage folks to join us. 

So if you are interested, that information is also on the veterans forum website which is linked in the guide as well as I believe in the chat. 

>> JENNIFER: Excellent. 

That is all so wonderful. 

We are just about -- oh, here we go, one more. 

I'm the director, which the library's a memorial to veterans. 

I've tried engaging our local veterans and there's a lot of apathy. 

Does anyone have anything that can really get people motivated to join us at library programming?

Ideas on how to get folks motivated. 

>> LEE ANN: Well, I was just going to say I know exactly what you're talking about and it is difficult to get things started.

But once you get started and once you start bringing in, open it up to military families and eventually you will start building your patron base. 

And don't give up. 

That's the only thing I can say, don't give up.

They will come. 

>> CHRISTY: I'm going to second that. 

We had sort of I don't want to say a buy-in, but we had people in the community, in the veterans community that were saying hey, this is going on and you should check this out. 

So I think that's important. 

You want to be doing something that people will come to. 

You want make sure that you're not duplicating other efforts for sure. 

But once we had a few folks that were coming, the word of mouth was really the best thing. 

Better than any publicity we could have done. 

>> JENNIFER: Building that trust and connection can take things a long ways. 

And I love the suggestion in chat to think about intergenerational programming as a way to draw folks in if they're bringing their grandchildren with them. 

That might be a different experience for them or make them motivated. 

Excellent. 

All right. 

We are at the top of the hour. 

A reminder that you can connect with folks and access all the resources on the libraries and veterans' toolkit. 

There's an email here on this website if you need to get any of your additional questions answered. 

I'm going to send you all an email later today once the recording is posted and additional links that you brought to the conversation, thanks to those of you who shared links to your great work.

That will all be added to the event page. 

I'll also automatically send you a certificate for attending today and a reminder that you can send any of your colleagues or partners to this learning on Web Junction for free. 

So follow up if others are interested. 

Thank you so much to our presenters. 

It's been so great to hear about all this great work that you've been doing and the inspiration is enormous. 

I've gotten some private chats telling me that this is invaluable to them, so -- and many have -- come from families either that are veterans themselves or are spouses. 

So again, thank you to everyone for all the great work that you're doing and our captioner and we'll be in touch shortly. 

Thank you all so much. 



>> Thank you.