This is ALA’s poster from World War I, the Great War. I wonder what the READ posters look like for Iraq and Afghanistan today? Can anyone point me to the one where they’re told their hometown library card lets them (soldiers) use the free online resources from their laptop and phone in the war theater?
It would be great to relieve those boring times back on base with a free eBook, audiobook, game or articles to finish my coursework back home. I know Wyoming State Library has done a great job with this kind of promotion for their MP3 audiobook library. Has any other library carried out a strategy to market themselves to local soldiers in the field? I know that it’s not small numbers with tens of thousands Army Reserve and National Guard deployed in addition to regular troops in the region alone and more troops and civilians in other international settings. It’s not a small or unimportant market for libararies – especially since they’re young and will return to their families with a positive view of libraries if we take action now. I think there have been 7,500 National Guard from Massachusetts alone in the Middle East since 2001.
I’d like to promote these strategies here so they can be flattered by the copies.
Stephen
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The Wyoming State Library did this and one better. Along with the library card, they gave MP3 players to deploying soldiers. See http://www-wsl.state.wy.us/slpub/outrider/2009/Apr2009.pdf for details. Apologies for the pdf file.
We have an advertisement on the front of our website about Library Access for Active Duty Military at http://www.hcpl.net/content/library-access-active-duty-military-personnel (and have for several months now). We developed a form that lets ANY active duty military get an HCPL library card. Normally, customers have to come to a branch to get a fully functional card, but using this system, we verify them by military email address. We had to find a way to get them a “real” and not “temporary” card as that is what will work with our downloadable audio.
I love this poster I think it has so much more dignity than the Read poster we are producing today.