Base Library offers numerous resources, more to come in 2013

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Jason Wiese
  • 90th Missile Wing Public Affairs
F. E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE, Wyo. --  The F. E. Warren library offers numerous services and resources for Airmen and their families. In an effort to be more efficient, the library is scheduled to adopt a set of changes to the way it does business. This process is scheduled to take place over the next several months.

"The mission of Air Force libraries is generally broken into three parts," said Tekla Slider, 90th Force Support Squadron supervisory librarian. "We're supposed to support the base mission first and foremost through office collections; secondly, we support professional and voluntary education; and last, we aim to improve quality of life.

"There's a misconception about libraries just having dusty old books," she said. "The library has a wide array of information in various formats. We have electronic resources the public may not be aware of."

In addition to a collection of 30,000 books and other print media, the base library gives patrons access to an extensive DVD collection and access to several electronic resources, Slider said.

Patrons have access to OverDrive, a database of ebooks and audiobooks including some on the Air Force chief of staff's reading list; Transparent, an online language learning tool; Universal Class, a collection of approximately 500 non-credit-earning online classes for personal enrichment; and research databases EBSCOhost and Gale through the base library.

The library also hosts story times and summer reading events and offers print and fax services, Slider said.

However, change is on the horizon for the F. E. Warren Library. Warren is one of a handful of Air Force bases whose libraries are beginning to test a new set of processes and services aimed at making them more efficient and useful to Airmen and their families, said Randy Shircel, 90th FSS deputy.

The change is part of a revamp of the services offered by the 90th FSS, he explained.

One major change is the library will move from its current location in Building 214 to the Fall Hall Community Center and become known as the Learning Resource Center early in fiscal year 2013. The LRC will shift the library's focus more from print media to electronic resources, Shircel said.

The LRC will provide more up-to-date information than possible with aging print media collections, he added.

Another change coming is that the library will join the Wyoming Library Database Network -- a network that comprises more than 90 libraries. This means you can get a library card here and have access to all of them, he explained.

"It'll expand our collection of 30,000 titles to more than one million, and that's just print titles," Slider added. "In addition, Airmen will have access to more electronic databases through the state."

Other behind-the-scene procedural changes will occur with the ultimate goal of streamlining the processes, Slider said.

"What I'm most excited about is the efficiency -- being able to get exactly what people want into their hands quickly," she said.

Despite changes, the 90th FSS is not cutting library services during the change, Slider said.

"We will continue to offer a lot of the things we do here like story time and summer reading," she said.

For more information about the base library, call 307-773-3416.