may08b.indd


Ann Wheeler 

Giving
back
to
those
who
serve:
Greta
Marlatt
and
the


Naval
Postgraduate
School


For the past 13 years, Greta Marlatt has been doing what she loves as information 
services manager at the Naval Postgradu­
ate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. 
NPS offers advanced degrees to military 
personnel in a range of academic subjects, 
all with a goal of improving 
military operations. Since 2002, 
NPS has also offered degrees to 
civilians through the Center for 
Homeland Defense and Security 
(CHDS). Marlatt answered my 
questions about her experiences 
as a military librarian at this job 
of a lifetime. 

How did you first get involved 
in libraries? 
I’ve always had an interest in libraries. I 
started working in one as an undergraduate 
at Arizona State [University] in a variety of 
positions and ended up in the Government 
Documents department. This was pre­In­
ternet, and in many libraries government 
documents were not even cataloged. I’m in­
quisitive enough that I would thumb through 
them, and [I] paid attention to what was 
in them. It was like a whole new world of 
information that other librarians sometimes 
found scary. 

The government produces statistics on 
just about anything, and has rules and regu­
lations on just about everything. You have 
to be a subject specialist in a big world. I 
just found it very interesting. 

Greta Marlatt 

At NPS you are subject specialist to a 
range of programs, including Informa­
tion Warfare, Special Operations, and 
Homeland Defense and Security. What 
has been most challenging? 
The homeland security program has been 

quite a challenge, and very inter­
esting. After 9/11, when the pro­
gram was created, I didn’t have a 
lot of background in emergency 
management, public health, crim­
inal justice, immigration, and all 
of those issues that are part of 
homeland security. I’ve had to get 
smart pretty quickly to stay one 
step ahead of the students, many 
of whom are middle managers in 
fire departments, police depart­

ments, emergency management, and public 
health, etc.; these are people who are experts 
in their fi elds. 

I read the article you coauthored, “Li­
braries in the war on terrorism,” which 
discusses NPS’s CHDS Homeland Security 
Digital Library. How did that project get 
started? 
When the school establishes the master’s 
program in homeland security, the center’s 
director felt that we needed a digital library 
to capture the emerging information. All of 

Ann Wheeler is the librarian at the Maryland Department 
of Natural Resources. Have a story idea for Job of a 
Lifetime? E-mail Ann at awheeler@dnr.state.md.us 

264C&RL News May 2008

mailto:awheeler@dnr.state.md.us


the students in the program are professionals 
with full­time jobs, and their agencies aren’t 
going to allow them to take 18 months off 
to go to school, so the program is largely a 
distance one. The Homeland Security Digital 
Library was developed to support those stu­
dents as well as the defense and homeland 
security communities in general. We know 
that we have somewhere between 9,000 and 
10,000 individual subscribers, but this does 
not include users who have access through 
IP or domain­level access. The digital library 
is not open to the public at­large, but we are 
trying to make it widely available to those 
who need it. 

For example, we just signed an MOU 
[Memorandium of Understanding] with the 
Federal Depository Library Program, and 
through that we are making it available to any 
depository library. We’re also trying to get to 
the fi refighters, police, and emergency man­
agement people across the country. Currently, 
one of our biggest users 
is the Los Angeles Fire 
Department. 

What type of materi­
als are in the Home­
land Security Digital 
Library (HSDL)? 
The HSDL focuses on 
strategy, policy, and management documents. 
In addition to collecting digital materials of 
all kinds, including documents, maps, images 
and Webcasts, we’ve ended up digitizing a 
variety of older things, such as executive or­
ders and public laws because they just aren’t 
in digital form and they are important from a 
historical perspective. We want to make it as 
easy for the researcher as we can. 

What do you find most rewarding about 
working at NPS? 
It’s really my way of giving back. I chose not 
to join the military, but I very much appreci­
ate what the military are willing to do, that 
they’re out there serving and protecting us. 
In the homeland security program, it’s the 
same thing. These are not people in a military 

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Information services manager 
What: Military librarianship 

Where: Naval Postgraduate School 

For more information, visit: 
www.nps.edu/Library/index.htmll 

uniform, but they might be in a fi refi ghter’s 
uniform, or a police uniform, or work in a 
hospital. They’re also out there putting their 
lives on the line to save, serve, and protect 
us. I love the fact that I’m able to help them, 
in a behind­the­scenes way, do their job just 
a little bit better. 

Do you think there is misunderstand­
ing in the library world about military 
librarianship? 
I don’t know if I’d call it a misunderstanding 
[or] just a lack of understanding. Sometimes 
people think that because we’re a military 
institution, we must only use military pub­
lications. Or if I tell them that I work with 
intelligence materials, they say, oh, you can’t 
tell me about it because you’d have to shoot 
me. The reality is a lot of intelligence material 
is actually open source. Sometimes people 
think that working for the military means you 
support a particular political party. If I had 

to give a message out 
there, it would be that 
whatever you think of 
the military, whatever 
you think of the cur­
rent President’s policy, 
whoever that president 
might be, is unrelated 
to the fact that you’re 

working in a library that’s supporting a spe­
cific group of people. They just happen to 
wear a uniform. 

What would you say to someone consid­
ering a job in a military library? 
I’m very passionate about what I do and I 
love what I do. I would love to see more 
people interested in working in the military 
community. We need more people, and we 
need some enthusiastic people with good 
ideas. 

If people can get beyond the [notion that] 
“oh, it’s the military” or [that] it’s a political 
thing, and realize that it’s a job, it’s another 
place to work, then I think they could fi nd 
it to be very exciting, very challenging, and 
very interesting. 

May 2008  265 C&RL News