Institutional Library Services

What makes a person a library user? Is it the love of books? Is it the love of information and knowledge? Is it love for the latest gossip? Is it the need to hear the latest music? Who can really say? But the truth of the matter is all library users have one thing in common, the willingness to walk in the door and maybe just maybe discover something great. Library users in prison are the same as those that walk into the libraries on the streets, they have the same concerns, the same needs, and the same desires as "Joe the plummer".

In the beautiful area of Spokane the Airway Heights Corrections Center (AHCC) Branch Library provides library services to the offenders of Airway Heights Corrections Center. Walking into AHCC Branch Library you will find a large room with high windows and plants thriving in the sunlight. Several tables and chairs are scattered around the room, providing a place for study or just reading the newspaper. In aproxmitaly 3800 sq. ft.

Whenever I tell someone that I work in a prison I always get questions like, "Are you scared?" "What are the inmates like?" but no one really expects my answers. That yes sometimes and for the most part they are the guys you walk by on the street. There is no pat answer for anything, but I would like to answer some of your questions. So tell me what you want to know, what questions are burning in your mind when you think about prisons, prisons library and I will will do my best to answer them.

Ok, not an easy questions to answer as every state and in some cases every institution is slightly different. However, for me it was a matter of getting really bored at my old job and needing a change of pace. Working in a large public libary in Riverside California I found I need more of a challenge and I needed something that would give me enough of a varity to keep from getting bored. So surfing the PNLA website for job listings I found the listing for the prison library system here in Washington.

I sent out a site like this earlier in the year. This one is better. Check out the section on E-Mail ! www.bartleby.com/64/

So, what do you put in the collection to help your patrons get a job when they get out? An important part of our libraries’ mission is to have the resources to help our patrons re-enter the community. A big part of a successful re-entry is getting a job. Using a day labor agency isn’t always a viable option for an ex-offender. In the Spokane, WA area where I’m at, it’s estimated that you need to earn at least $10.50 to support a family of four. That often isn’t what these types of jobs pay.

ILS has a core group of librarians that offer adminstrative, technical, and personal supprt to the front line staff. As each library is spread out across the state, standardization has become a struggle, but it has been achieved in so many ways. Movement among the offender population is constantly changing, as they move from one institution to another so we pride ourselves in being able to offer the same services at each location. Interlibrary loans, circulation procedures, materials, and many other things are all similiar.

I have been employed by the State Library Institutional Services department at the branch at Western State Hospital for nearly 27 years. Annually, this state psychiatric hospital houses 900-1000 citizens in western Washington. It is reputed to be one of the larger psychiatric hospitals “west of the Mississippi.”

Earl Dungey - McNeil Island Corrections Center Library

And many have done a "little time" They include Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, St. Paul, Christopher Columbus, and writers Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Miguel Cervantes. How one gets inside a prison isn’t as important as what they do there and after they are released, or so this illustrious list of names would have you believe.