Presentation from the Entrepreneurial Librarian Conference, October 17, 2014, Wake Forest University. entrelib.org Diane K Campbell, Rider University

1. When a Veteran is a
Novice: A New
Constituency and A New
Opportunity
Diane Campbell, Associate Professor-Librarian

2. Rider has an enthusiastic veterans’ program.
In 2009, the Rider Veterans Association was started to better
support our student veterans. In 2013, two veterans put a flag in
the campus mall for every soldier who has died since 10/7/2001,
more than 6,800 of them.

3. Veteran Entrepreneurial Program
 Goal is a complete business plan
 Open to all veterans
 The program is longer than most others
 In-person classes

4. Program Structure
 Two three-hour workshops
 Six weeks of classroom training
 One year of mentoring
 Class size is limited to 15 students

5. Best Practices Research
 “The only thing that continuing education students and
instructors have in common is that they have nothing in
common; their diversity creates unique information literacy
challenges.” (Lange, Canuel,& Fitzgibbons, 2011, p. 70).
 “Perhaps the biggest challenge is working with a population that
has greater or different needs than those commonly served by a
university library. The range of educational backgrounds and
academic preparedness is wider than in a typical university
course.” (Hoppenfeld, Wyckoff, Henson, Mayotte,& Kirkwood,
2013, p. 301).

6. Best Practices
 Embed the librarian
 Active learning (hands-on)
 Explicit recognition of diverse backgrounds
and library anxiety
 Detailed resources online

7. Our Veterans
 Twelve men, two women
 Ages 24 to 59
 Seven African-Americans, 3 Hispanic-origin,
4 White, non-Hispanic-origin
 One High school grad, 5 “some college,” 2
Associate’s, 3 Bachelor’s, 3 Master’s
 Eight have owned or do own their own
business

8. Business Research Workshop
 Scheduled the week before classes began
 Three hours, 6:30 to 9:30 pm with 1
scheduled break
 Cover material that is normally covered in 7
1.5 hour instruction sessions
 Handout & Research guide

11. “What is most valuable about this
workshop?”
 -hands on going through the different tabs
 -the guide that was built along the lines of the course, the
amount of material was perfect
 - although information overload, great source of information for
business/plans research
 - the instruction was excellent and easy to grasp and the
computer classroom made for an excellent enrollment to explore
the material
 - access to all the research sites and the ability to reach out to a
professional that is willing to help
 - information is power and this was an excellent source of
information. These are invaluable lessons for market research
 - all of it

12. “What is least valuable about this
workshop?”
 - n/a
 - the cold room
 - n/a
 - n/a
 - a lot of information in a short period of time
 - too much to learn in too little time. Enough
time for fundamentals though.
 - everything was valuable

13. “What other improvements would
you recommend in this workshop?”
 - maybe breaking the class into two night sessions versus one
 - more time
 - perhaps this workshop should have been 1 hour longer
 - resource videos of instruction would be helpful, not only as
prep for class, but a resource to visit on any occasion to polish
materials
 - maybe adding an additional session in order to get into more
detail about research
 - I just needed more time to learn the system and ask questions
 - Longer, at least 6 hours

14. Lessons Learned
 Create tutorials, these are motivated learners
 Timing of the session needs to be during
rather than before classes
 Or embed into class sessions

15. Graduation, June, 2014

16. References
 Hoppenfeld, J., Wyckoff, T., Henson, J., Mayotte, J., & Kirkwood, H.
(2013). Librarians and the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans:
Helping disabled veterans with business research. Journal of Business
& Finance Librarianship, 18(4), 293-308.
 Lange, J., Canuel, R., & Fitzgibbons, M. (2011). Tailoring information
literacy instruction and library services for continuing education. Journal
of Information Literacy, 5(2), 66-80.