Military Life

On September 11, 2001, in libraries throughout the country, librarians turned on their television sets so they and their patrons could see what was happening. But for military librarians, the attacks were not just painful but deeply personal; some of their colleagues were victims of the Pentagon attack, and their patrons were suddenly on the brink of war.

At the Robert F. Sink Memorial Library in Fort Campbell, KY, there was no TV. James Moore, the supervisory librarian, "was listening to the news in my office and giving everyone bulletins as it got worse and worse. When we heard that the Pentagon had been hit, we were all horrified. It is impossible to have worked for the army for 23 years like I have and not know someone assigned to that building." Indeed, they found out later that army librarian M. Ann Parham was injured in the attack, and the Pentagon Library destroyed. (She has since recovered and has restored the library.)

That day, life at military libraries throughout the country changed, as the forces they served prepared for combat. Debrah Williamson and Nancy Hamlett, Sink Library's circulation technicians, say Fort Campbell became focused on information about the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Within days, officers were requesting books about the Gulf War and desert warfare. There was a run on books about terrorism, the Middle East, and Muslim religion and history.

Under normal, peacetime circumstances, military libraries resemble their civilian counterparts, except that they serve additional special constituencies. Their hospital libraries emphasize military medicine and trauma care. Service academy libraries support traditional liberal arts, but the collection and reference questions are heavily weighted toward military history, technology, and strategy.

"General libraries"—those serving army posts and navy and air force bases, which comprise the majority of military libraries—are like public libraries, serving the needs of soldiers and their dependents plus the strategic planning needs of commanders and the professional advancement goals of officers.

Post and base libraries overseas are often the only English-language resources available to soldiers and their families. Barb Kuttler, now reference librarian at St. Ambrose University, was a supervisory librarian at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan from 1994 to 1996. The library was open 78 hours a week, every day of the year including Christmas, because, she says, "lower enlisted assigned to ships, like aircraft carriers that carry 5000 people, are not permitted to have apartments, so they live on the ship when in port, too. Sometimes, their bunk is shared by three people, on eight-hour shifts, so they really have no place to call their own...and rely on the library to provide some quiet space."

Funding is a perennial concern for any service not considered critical to the military mission. In an environment in which some base libraries have been shut down altogether, it's a challenge for librarians to get the money they need for basic services, let alone for new technology and staff training. "You learn to be very creative [with] funding," says Sink's Moore.

That's why the heads of the military library programs have been tightening management, performance standards, and financial accountability. In a 1997 presentation at the Military Librarians Workshop, air force librarian Barbara Wrinkle outlined steps she has taken to make air force libraries more cost-effective, and to ensure that if libraries are outsourced, they'll meet quality assurance standards defined by air force librarians.

Similarly, the Pentagon's Parham aims to defend the worth of army libraries, provide accountability, and support funding requests, through the "development and testing of a statistics collection system on library usage and resources." Fifty army libraries are now participating in the Measurement, Tracking and Information Collection System Parham instituted in November, 2003. Collaborating across the branches of the military, these leaders have used their joint budget clout to negotiate significant cost savings in the shared purchase of databases.

Sink Library is one of the larger libraries in the army post system. It serves over 222,000 patrons at Fort Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne Division (the "Screaming Eagles"), who returned from Iraq in February 2004 and some of whom are expected to be redeployed this fall. The post is like a town, sprawling over 164 square miles of Kentucky and Tennessee, and housing 4100 families, the third largest military population in the army.

Normal peacetime duties are as varied as providing children's programs for military families throughout the year and serving as Command Reference Center for the Southeast Region of the United States and supporting higher ed courses at Fort Campbell's Army Education Center.

Inside the brick building on Screaming Eagles Boulevard, a sense of military mission prevails. Many patrons wear uniforms or fatigues, and the artwork depicts missions of the 101st Airborne.

Public workstations offer access to the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) system. This portal offers databases, tutorials, a messaging system, and other tools designed to enable knowledge sharing among Army communities and improve military planning and decision-making.

AKO also supports officers' education and training. Each military library branch stocks and maintains a required list of recommended reading for officers. Recently, AKO added e-books to the collection, so that officers and soldiers could access them wherever they were stationed.

Much of Sink Library's normal reference and interlibrary loan work is done on behalf of officers seeking to advance their military careers.

Three days a week, Sink's reference librarians are part of the Question Point team, responding to questions from officers and soldiers worldwide, as part of the Defense Digital Library Research Service. Librarians at post libraries in Europe, Hawaii, and Korea also contribute, making it a 24/7 service. Their answers then become a permanent part of the AKO knowledge base.

But this library is as much about fostering morale as supplying information. Indeed, all the general libraries are part of MWR (morale, welfare, and recreation) services—to meet the needs of military families who are constantly being assigned to different bases. Circulation tech Hamlett knows from experience how difficult that can be and gets special pleasure from "helping the families ease into the life here."

Librarians put on story hours for the kids and run a summer reading program. They provide a nice supply of current popular books as well, both fiction and nonfiction, for every age range, interest, and political taste, from Rush Limbaugh to Al Franken. (One of the librarians was recently heard lamenting, "Aren't there any positive books about Bush these days?") And they keep the history of the 101st Airborne.

The coming of war creates special needs. Jan Daugherty, the acquisitions librarian, has served in military libraries for 28 years. One of her most memorable experiences was working early morning and late at night, for eight straight days, handing out paperback book kits to soldiers as they were boarding planes to Iraq. "It was heart-tugging," she says, "because you knew that some of them wouldn't be coming back."

The library continued to receive requests from soldiers and chaplains for more books. "We mailed thousands of books to units in Iraq," Daugherty says. "Chaplains and soldiers set up temporary libraries." The library has received a special commendation from the post's commander and letters of thanks from the soldiers.

Barbara Harry, a reference librarian at Sink Library for 23 years, says that being at war gives a special sense of importance to their work. After September 11, librarians helped officers find information on the Russian military's experiences in Afghanistan and showed recently arrived reserve and National Guard troops how to use AKO to prepare for their assignments.

Service to military families took on new dimensions as well. As spouses started coming in to use library computers to keep in touch with their soldiers, librarians quickly established classes to teach how to set up and use email accounts and bought coloring books and crayons to keep children occupied. Moore plans to add a video imaging system so deploying soldiers can make tapes of themselves reading books aloud for their kids.

There are times when the most important thing the library staff can do is provide a sympathetic ear. Library aide Chie McCoin says, "I always pay special attention to deployed soldiers' wives because I sympathize with them, since I'm going through the same difficulties. Some family members just want to vent their frustrations about deployment-related hardships. After trying to help out by finding the offices and the phone numbers to call, we just listen."

Of the 15 members of Sink Library's staff, five are military spouses themselves. It makes them familiar with the culture and jargon and unusually supportive of their patrons and each other. When the 101st Airborne deployed in Iraq, reference librarians immediately started compiling articles on the role in Iraq, indexed by the names of every soldier mentioned, knowing how important it was for family members, now and in the future, to track their soldier's service; the collection is already up to four fat volumes and growing.

These days, among the library users, you'll see "sun-tanned, tired-looking soldiers just returned from Iraq," says McCoin. They're easy to spot, she says, because only departing and returning soldiers wear desert camouflage. She makes a point of welcoming them home.