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The Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) was built in 1889 in the rich agricultural country of Walla Walla. The East Complex Branch Library has been part of the WSL family since 1966 and provides services to 982 offenders. 15,000 items are housed in aproximatley 1650 sq. ft. creating a welcoming environment for the offenders to meet their educational, informational, and recreational needs.

Since I started working in correctional libraries I have not had a chance to be bored and that is the way I like it. From the moment I leave my car to the movement I get back into it to go home, there is something for me to do. Just an example of what my day can be like: Arrive at the institution about 11:45 am.

I have always know that movies about prison life been out there, hey I was one of those glued to the TV watching OZ and Prison Break, but until I started researching this topic I had no idea how extensive the draw of prison life was for people. A blog, using wordpress.com http://www.prisonflicks.com/ reviews prison movies, many of them from the 70s and 80s, and the earliest one I found Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) starring William Holden.

This is the question everyone always asks, when you tell them you work in a prison library. The next being, have you ever seen Shawshank Redemption? The question is asked with all innocence and with no real aspect of what it is like to work in a prison. So you have to laugh and tell them what it is really like. Here is my answer when people ask me: Sometimes. The daily basis of my job is just like anyone else who works in a library, except I may have to go through a few more doors and gates then the average library worker.

I had been on the job for 6 months and felt that I was finally getting the hang of working in a prison, but then things are not always as they seem. I was called up to the counter to help an inmate and after a few basic routine questions went back to my desk. Soon I realized my pen was missing, damn where did I put that thing? The pen was one of my favorites from home and I loved the way it wrote so smoothly. I decided to check up at the counter, maybe I had taken it up there, but no pen. I wasn’t sure what to say or do. Do I confront them or let it slide?

Modern technology assures that no library staff is really alone, separated by miles, walls and fences perhaps but everyone is only a fax, phone call or email away. It is required that we check our email twice a day and respond. We share reference questions and circulation problems, coordinate efforts in coverage of absent library staff, illness or rare vacations and all through electronic transmissions. Still, it would be best if we would get together and share our experiences, training, trials and triumphs with each other face to face. You know, like real people do.

We've been busy publishing the collections that have been submitted from the 2007-2008 grant awardees. [caption id="attachment_23" align="alignleft" width="177" caption="Lopez Island Heritage - Cora Standley Graham and Frances Guard, dressed as hunters "][/caption] The Lopez Island Public L

[caption id="attachment_30" align="alignleft" width="216" caption="Laura digitizing from a ladder at the Kettle Falls library."]

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="397" caption="Mid 1950s reef net boat construction at Chuckanut Bay"][/caption] Washington Rural Heritage recently published two new collections.