From the Trenches to the Writer’s Desk: Establishing a Collection of Children’s Books Authored by Military Veterans in an Academic Library

Abstract

Kansas State University possesses a collection of juvenile literature to aid Education and English Department programs. K-State is also the university with the largest military population in the state. It was discovered that several famous children’s authors were military veterans. Building upon this research, over 160 children’s authors who served in the military were identified. K-State Libraries NEH Endowment Committee funded the curation of a military veteran children’s literature collection, the only known academic library to possess such a collection. The collection enabled the libraries to provide outreach through access to the materials, internet resources, and special collections exhibits.

Keywords:

• Academic libraries
• children’s books
• children’s literature
• juvenile
• outreach

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Casey D. Hoeve

Casey D. Hoeve is an Associate Professor and Head of Content & Collections at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE. He was formerly an Associate Professor and Content Development Librarian at K-State Libraries for Arts, Architecture & the Humanities.