Standards for Library Services for the Incarcerated and Detained, American Library Association
Prisoners' Right to Read: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights, The American Library Association
Resources for the Correctional Librarian, The American Library Association
This resource guide provides information on providing library services within correctional institutions, including ALA policies and standards, a select bibliography, directories of organizations that support library services and intellectual freedom for justice-involved individuals, along with resources for libraries to provide justice-involved individuals upon reentry into their communities.
Directory of State Prison Libraries
A comprehensive listing of prison libraries in the U.S.
National Institute of Corrections Library
The NIC Information Center is proud to serve as the leader in corrections-related resources for staff at all levels of federal, state, local, and tribal corrections agencies. In our collection, you will find guides and best practices, surveys, and streaming videos of nearly any topic you will face in your agency. If you feel that our collection is missing a topic area or if you have questions about a publication or research you are doing, please reach out to our helpdesk through the form below.
Congrats! You're a Prison Librarian...Now What?
A panel of correctional facility librarians will share their experiences and how they are able to succeed at their job. Topics will include but are not limited to collection development, working with other facility staff, and programming. Leave the session feeling re-energized and ready to tackle the daily challenges that come with working in a correctional facility.
Correctional Librarianship - Helping Change Lives One Book at a Time
Correctional librarianship can be a rewarding career path or career entry point for librarians seeking to use their skills to improve lives and/or work with underserved populations. But what, exactly, is correctional librarianship? Where might you work, and what work might you do? Find answers to these and other questions about correctional librarianship by joining SJSU alumnus Matthew Colvin, senior librarian for the Salinas Valley State Prison, as he shares his career expertise.
Intellectual Freedom in a Correctional Library
Intellectual freedom is at the heart of a free society, and nowhere is it more important or difficult to defend than in a prison or jail library. Censorship of materials for the incarcerated is intended to support safety and security and comes with certain legal and ethical limits.
Library Programming in a Correctional Library
All libraries hold regular events to meet unique community needs, and prison and jail libraries are no exception. For the incarcerated who struggle with literacy, programs go beyond books to teach them that a library can be a safe place to practice life skills that reduce recidivism.
Teaching Information Literacy in a Correctional Library
Information literacy is a set of abilities that allows an individual to navigate our complex world. Library staff serving people in prison or jail teach the incarcerated these essential life skills that reduce recidivism and make success possible.
Prison Library Services Trainings
Series on expanding information access to incarcerated individuals training webinars.
Library Learning - L2 - via RAILS and IHLS
If you are a RAILS or IHLS member, here is a list of upcoming events and training. Note: password required to login to view events.
Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI)
See an event on a topic you would like to learn more about? Reach out to CARLI about attending. It doesn't hurt to ask!
The Editor, Criminal
In November of 1988, Robin Woods was sentenced to sixteen years in the notoriously harsh Maryland Correctional Institution. In prison, Robin Woods found himself using a dictionary to work his way through a book for the first time in his life. It was a Mario Puzo novel. While many people become highly educated during their incarceration, Robin Woods became such a voracious and careful reader he was able to locate a factual error in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. He wrote a letter to the encyclopedia’s editor, Mark Stevens, beginning an intricate friendship that changed the lives of both men.
Nicholas Higgins on Library Service to Jails and Prisons, FYI Podcast
We talk with Nicholas Higgins, director of Outreach Services at the Brooklyn (NY) Public Library. Higgins, author of the latest book in the PLA Quick Reads series, shares wisdom gleaned from his years of experience providing library service to incarcerated persons; provides a thoughtful perspective on the American criminal justice system and shows how to provide the absolute best service to this group and the families they have left behind.
Outreach Services to Persons Who Are/Were Incarcerated, FYI Podcast
In this episode, we chat with Jenn McKague, an Outreach Services Librarian at the Salt Lake County Library, who is dedicated to serving persons who are incarcerated and those who have been incarcerated. Jenn shares her background, the services she provides, the challenges she faces, and more in a candid and informative conversation. Tune in to learn about Jenn’s work and the impact she’s making in the lives of these often overlooked communities.
Prison Library Offers A Place to Escape, NPR
Some 1,700 residents of the Jessup Correctional Institution in Maryland make very good use of their library. Most inmates will never win early release, so the library becomes a place to improve reading skills, write a letter home, watch an instructional video on auto mechanics or just escape, mentally. Host Liane Hansen visits the prison to talk with longtime prison librarian Glennor Shirley. Shirley runs the libraries for the entire Maryland prison system.