Library News, by David W. Keeber
Red Rock News
Date: December 28, 2007
Fifteen hundred each day – that is the number of World War II veterans that are passing away each day. During the week prior to Christmas, one of three surviving World War I vets, aged 109 years, passed on leaving only two such vets alive. This irreplaceable trove of knowledge of America’s history at war deserves preservation. Sedona Public Library is participating in the Veterans History Project, a national effort to collect this history and preserve it at the Library of Congress and the American Folklife Center, but we need help to do this important work.
The mission of the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress is to collect the memories, accounts, and documents of war veterans from World War I, World War II, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf Wars, and to preserve these stories of experience and service for future generations.
By “veterans,” that means all veterans, men and women, those who served in war and in support of combat operations, all ranks in all branches of service – the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. That also includes the Merchant Marine, those involved in home front activities and citizens who supported the armed services. The first priority is to focus on the most senior veterans and those who served in support of them, especially those from World Wars I and II, and the Korean War.
James Billington, Librarian of Congress said, “We owe our wartime veterans a profound appreciation for their sacrifice and service to our nation and its future. We also owe all our citizens an opportunity to appreciate and honor those men and women who have protected our nation in the gravest of times. Together, with the help of all Americans, we can honor our war veterans and create a lasting body of documentary materials that will inform and educate our citizens in the decades ahead.”
The Sedona Public Library’s Board of Trustees have determined that Sedona Public Library shall serve as a participating partner in the Veterans History Project, whose intent is to honor our nation’s war veterans and those who served in support of them. This is done by collecting their stories. In so doing, we will assist in creating a lasting legacy of recorded interviews and other documents chronicling veterans’and other citizens’ wartime experiences and how those experiences affected their lives and America itself.
Your Library has assembled a cadre of volunteers who regularly meet to interview veterans, videotaping them and then passing the information on to the Library of Congress. The veteran receives a copy of the interview and a copy goes on to the American Folklife Center for archiving. These interviews are the personal testimonies of the war experience of the vets and their families.
The material is to be made available to anyone who cares to research it via the Library of Congress. If you have access to the Internet, visit the Veterans History Project site at www.loc.gov/folklife/vets. By searching that site, you can learn more about the project itself, search for individual interviewees and even read their interviews and see documents and photographs.
To date, the Sedona Library’s volunteer team has gathered more than 30 interviews, and there are at least 50 more interviewees waiting their turn. They are a dedicated and active cadre, but they are shorthanded. That’s where you come in.
We need the help of people who see this work as vital. Help is needed to do the actual interviews (there is training for this portion, in case you think you would have no idea how to proceed), running the video and audio equipment during the interviews, assisting with completion of the necessary forms, and other tasks. The time necessary to do these tasks is adjustable, ranging from a few hours per week to whatever you care to provide. The need is great based on the rate of loss of our World War II veterans and the number of new veterans arriving home each day.
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Anthony J. Principi says, “I urge all Americans to participate in the Veterans History Project. Capturing stories of those who served in uniform in their own words will provide the inspiration future generations will need when it is their turn to defend the nation Abraham Lincoln once called ‘the last best hope on earth.’”
If you are a veteran, or know a veteran, or anyone who fits the description above, encourage them to tell their story by contacting your Sedona Public Library.
Please consider giving your time to this vital national archiving project. You can experience the extreme gratification of helping preserve history, as well as the gratitude of the soldiers who are finally able to tell and preserve their stories. Call the Sedona Public Library to sign up. Make it your New Years resolution to help!
