NYPL Blogs: Freedom of Thought

Rikers

Alice Gavin, Correctional Services Volunteer — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:02:41 -0400

The prison is a structure. It has walls and it has smells and there are sounds you hear inside the prison. There are people who work and who live there. There are rules and there are gates and there are also friendships, and barbershops, and rabbis. I have been going to Rikers Island, which is a piece of land, on one end of a bridge, at the edge of the world.

There are fourteen thousand prisoners in ten jails. Most stay about 45 days, some much longer, and many will journey on upstate, to places I haven't seen but where I do know, at least, that there is time, and time, and time.

There are houses on Rikers Island, in pairs, and they remind me of railway tracks, the way they meet and then stretch out away from each other, evenly arranged: cell after cell after cell after cell after cell.

There is a room, at the end of a hallway, where water drips from the ceiling and blue paint comes away from the walls, and where there is a faded sign saying chapel. One day I passed by to see two people in there, marrying each other.

The prison is an idea. There are ways of speaking and ways of acting inside the prison. There are places that men must stand, legs apart, hands against the wall. Crossing over the bridge from Queens, Rikers Island comes into view as a relic: an old, low, crouching fixture on the landscape.

The library is also an idea. It is an idea about what we mean by public and about how we treat knowledge, and about how things might change. If the prison must exist, as an island, and as a whole world, and as a way of thinking, then so, we might say, must the library.

We push an unwieldy metal cart through the houses, and it is piled with books, which are precious objects. But inside the brick walls of the prison, they are even more precious ideas.

Word From the Big House (Excerpts from a Daily Rikers Journal)

Christian Rees, Correctional Services Volunteer — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:16:43 -0400

This entry is formatted as a creative, non-fiction essay synthesized from notes taken during my first day volunteering at Rikers Island on January 22nd, 2013. None of the included events are fabricated; all the inmates and guards are currently working or serving time on Rikers Island, therefore no names have been included. The material is drawn from my own sensory experience, conversations with inmates, and outside research. The final product is my blow-by-blow recollection and reflection on a day of first impressions.

The island is mostly chain-link fences tinseled with barbed wire rings, low temporary trailers marked with the names retired officers, wardens or chiefs, and the ten correctional centers.

Shuttle #4 loops up along the East River to the North-most tip of the island, where the 1,350-bed George R. Vierno Center (GRVC) sprawls.

I dutifully follow the buzzer that disengages the double-thick front doors and enter. I strip off my belt, my coat, my scarf, my bag, empty my pockets, turn over my cell phone to be housed—dead silent—in a locker; I shove my belongings down the X-ray's chute and myself through the metal detector's jaws.

When my left hand is stamped with luminescent white ink I nod and smile at the officer and thank her. Each Ma'am and Sir gets that same thank-you and overdrawn smile.

There's a language here I'm not quite codified into yet. Walking through the locks and gates, the checkpoints, past gun benches, past faces behind glass, blue uniforms and their silver shields, I feel uncertain.

The only certainty is what I am here to do: books. And what the officers do: the locks and gates and the daily in and out. And what the inmates do: wait.

They're here conversing this way when the lights go out, when they come back on; when the snow locks the island down, when the sun opens it up. I only interject.

They have hard discourse; I have the books.

"THROUGH THESE GATES WALK NEW YORK'S BOLDEST"

The slogan, a judicious tongue, declares above the gate to GRVC's general population. To my right, before our last gate, a hallway stretches into the incalculable distance. It is a hallway of riot gear: plastic riot helmets looking flimsy, useless, hanging disembodied on their hooks; a plastic trash can full of wooden Billy clubs, each 2 and ½ feet long: the War Clubs.

Tongues used in the daily talk of Rikers. The guards, I imagine, boom and stride like giants in their bulky riot gear; the inmates shrink and reduce.

It's the give and take language of this place.

The officers have a arsenal of nouns: cuffs; anklets; chains, "Tubes" (foam casings that wrap an inmate's hands in cylinders like fat sausages), wired glass, steel, their shields: riot shields, tin and leather badges, Taser shields for control; clubs; mace; handguns.

These are tongues of continuous conversation. The inmates listen and wait, read and sleep. An unbearable patience is their tongue.

Ours is our books. We tote them through security in clear, plastic bags. Semi-pristine and scuffed additions join the ratty catalogue on the shelves. Each is stamped with the NYPL's mark.

We bring these books here to be read, torn, underlined, lost, stolen, trashed. Some covers are rippled and slick from handling; others non-existent, obliterated; others taped; others perfect, uncracked.

I work: conceding to regulations, inquiring about literary interests, taking requests, shooting the shit, and providing what I can, when I can.

Our library is a closet. Three shelves line the right wall footed by maimed romance novels. A beat-up file cabinet stuffed with back issues of National Geographic and glossy periodicals flanks the door, while a hulking desk eats two thirds of the floor tiles. We have a cart too, a rattling, heavy steel thing overflowing with trade paperbacks and oversized non-fiction, editions too large to squeeze onto the shelves.

We stock the cart with what we think will interest the guys. We use gaudy titles to catch the eye: James Patterson, Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, Stephen King, and Robert Ludlum do the trick. Certain authors get the special distinction of nightly lock-up in a metal cabinet out in the Program Office's main room. The popular fiction, urban fiction, and comic books sleep there on our off days, emerging each Tuesday and Thursday, between ten o'clock and two-thirty, to meet the thumbs and eyes of our patrons.

Our most requested titles: Fifty Shades of Grey; the Twilight, Hunger Games, and Dark Tower series; anything by Patterson, Ludlum, Rice, Martin, or Rowling; that morning's Metro, AM, and Village Voice.

Cornwell, Grisham, Brooks, and Brown have fallen out of favor.

I peddle Hemingway, Wilde, Yeats, Steinbeck, Baldwin, and Dante with the guiltless ease of any dealer.

I talk comic book shoptalk.

Two kids and I discussed the merits of Spiderman and Ultimate Marvel. They couldn't have been more than nineteen, tight with one another, shoulder to shoulder, hunched over the cardboard box of issues, thumbing through and stacking their "maybes" in twin, neat piles. They ribbed one another and smiled constantly.

One of them did sketches from the pages of comic books he got from us. He was good, his friend told me. Today, the artist made out with a prize: a 90s era Jim Lee X-Men issue featuring Galactus and Magneto duking it out in vibrant neons. They cradled the issue between them and left wide-eyed, grinning.

Another guy, older, his beard hanging to the hollow of his throat, his arms and chest bulging with a surplus of free time and free weights, versed me on the uselessness of a Hulk comic where Dr. Banner doesn't Hulk-out. He flipped intently through an issue whose dark cover was etched with a black and white tableau of the good doctor and his green demon.

"No hulk," he said impassively, slipping the issue back into the anonymity of the box. Things are meant to do what they're meant to do: if Hulk doesn't go Hulk, then what the hell is he?

Between ten to two thirty we work with varying success. Two Spanish inmates came and left with Spanish language editions of Lorca, Neruda, and Yeats tucked under their arms. Another man renewed On the Road and selected a copy of The Ballad of Reading Gaol. I told him I'd like to pick his brain about the poem next time we met in the library. He just smiled, thanked me, and left.

Others come and leave with ragged issues of Sports Illustrated, People, and National Geographic to pass the time. Some leave without choosing a thing at all.

Our time is short, regularly bisected by headcounts in the housing blocks and the officers' lunch hour and a half. Any inmates in the Programs Office during these frozen periods are stuck with us. They leaf through their books, duck in and out of the library, or are told to sit and stay on benches by one of the C.Os. Some are dutiful and some are restless.

A day here is a waiting period; a series of conversations; a stream of men sifting through stacks they've looked through a dozen times before, finding something good, finding nothing at all; some days nobody is allowed to come.

The guys tell us that the officers sometimes clear out a cell because it has too much clutter. They toss half of the prisoner's books into the garbage. Each man's carefully kept collection goes through this thinning process at least once. So they swap frequently, hoping to avoid losing too often.

Books pass around a lot at Rikers and many never come back to us. Whether they're in the trash or a different pocket every day, better they stay in the general population than locked up five out of seven days a week.

A book is palpable and real to hold: a paper to tuck under an arm and a book for a shelf. If you've got two or three, you have a choice.

There's not much choice at Rikers day to day.

At quitting time, an inmate berated us about the "poisonous books" we brought in for the population.

"You need more books to educate, not the shit you bring," he told us.

He was not a large man, average in height, but with that certain build common among inmates: wide chest, thick arms. He was not large and did not intimidate actively, but he spoke with a grave certainty knotted with pride and frustration.

His was an odd power imbued by his incarceration: the validity of experience.

We couldn't say much in our defense. He was the one behind the locks and glass. Sheepish, we busied ourselves reorganizing the cart; we shrugged, excused ourselves, our collection, and blamed the donation process we went through to get our books.

When he was gone and we were packing up the urban fiction, we found it was easy to justify: the prisoners have to read something. It might as well be what they want to read. Literacy is a valiant cause. Not every prisoner is going to take on the role of lawyer and work himself free.

And the comics, that little brightness, an infusion of heroism and escapism bringing on fits of excitement: the excitement of two young men looking through the box of comics and combing out the prime issues of X-Men, Batman, and the Avengers.

What of it?

We locked up, promising requests, new books, our faces again next Tuesday, and left our closet behind for the weekend.

At a hog-leg in the hallway we came to face the exercise yard. Leaves and plastic wrappers walked its circumference. A plane took off beyond the walls from LaGuardia. Gulls hopped across the white borders of the basketball courts.

As we passed, shadows hooked through the red and white basketball nets, out the other side, and away. Tomorrow the men will be playing pick up games and smoking cigarettes in the sun. They will mill and stroll for the sake of motion. But today it is too cold for exercise.

The front doors buzzed and clicked open. One of the officers, pissed off at another, shouted as she shrugged on her duffel coat, red scarf, and leather gloves.

"This goddamn building is gonna be standing when your ass is dead and gone."

She left clucking her tongue and shaking her head.

Holding the door for her, I was trying to recall whether my collection of back issue comics had any sequence at all.

Inmates in striped orange and white DOC jumpsuits picked up trash in front of the Center. An officer smoked a cigarette on a bench and watched. The men wore latex gloves.

In their cupped palms: the butts of Camels, plastic wrappers, fossilized chewing gum. They emptied their hands into plastic bags; a silent exchange.

The #4 shuttle pulled up, cranked open its folding door. We climbed in and drove away, arching along the East River, leaving the men and officers behind.

The Beauty of Snail Mail

Hailley Fargo, Community Outreach Intern — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 06:37:23 -0400

On my first day as an intern at the New York Public Library, Nick Higgins, the Associate Director for Community Outreach, handed me a stack of legal-sized white envelopes, a letter opener, and a Correctional Library Services, Mid-Manhattan Library stamp.

"You feel comfortable answering letters from prisoners?" Nick asked. I nodded, unsure of what I was getting myself into, but still attempting to look enthusiastic since it was my first day. "Great, it's simple. First, you look up the prisoner with their DIN, department ID number. Once you know they are still in custody and at the location they mailed their letter from, then you can open the letter up and see what they're asking for." Nick continued explaining and I kept nodding, trying to remember everything. I sort of felt I had just jumped into something way over my head. There were so many letters sitting in front of me, some probably asking questions I wouldn't know the answers to. Was I up to the task?

I was and spent most of my first day answering letters and addressing envelopes. It took about a day to finally figure it all out and create enough letter templates that I now have a general letter for any one I open.

Every day, NYPL's Correctional Services department receives many letters from prisoners in New York prisons and prisons across the country. Their letters usually fall into two categories: reference questions or requests for Connections.

Reference questions can be on literally anything. Since most prisoners do not have access to computers, they have no way of gathering information we often take for granted. I've looked up information on proxy marriages, song lyrics, used cars, and more. We can send up to ten pages of text, which gives us plenty of room to give an informative response.

The other request is for our book, Connections and the Job Search. This guide is published every year to contain the most up-to-date information on resources available to former inmates as they readjust to daily life. It is chock full of great information and we provide a free copy to any incarcerated person in the state of New York.

Regardless if the letter is asking for reference information or a copy of Connections, each letter receives a typed response. We stamp our return address label on the envelope (no hand written ones are allowed) and then nicely print the prisoner's name, their DIN number, and the address of the facility where they are housed. It's crucial that this information is correct; a misplacement of a number or letter can automatically mean the envelope of important information is shipped back to the Mid-Manhattan Library. And what good does that do?

This on-going project has reminded me the importance of two things: letter writing and access to information. Some of these letter writers are lonely and a response back is just what they need to brighten their day. I know what a thrill it is to receive a letter in the mail and so I always work quickly on sending letters; the quicker it's sitting on the mail cart means the quicker it will be in the hands of the prisoner.

And when I read their letters, it's easy to hear the excitement in their voices as their scribbles on the page say phrases like, "This is my year!" or "I would like a Connections so I can start to figure out what I want to do with my life." or "I look forward to hearing from you!" and more.

I'm writing this blog post using a computer and if I had a question on anything, I just have to open a new tab and type it into Google. It's not easy to imagine what life would be like without information literally at my fingertips. But then that situation reminds me why libraries will always be important: we gather, fine-tune, and provide information to people who have limited access.

The best letter I ever opened was one I didn't need to write an answer for. It was addressed to me, Hailley F., the way I sign every letter I send out. It wasn't a long letter, only a few lines. The man thanked me for sending him a copy of Connections. He told me it would be extremely useful to him and he couldn't wait to start using it. I got that happy feeling, the feeling where you know you're doing the right thing with your life. I was proud to be helping him and thrilled he was so excited.

As my intern responsibilities have grown, I've stopped responding to as many letters, allowing our solid group of volunteers to answer them instead. Nevertheless, I still smile when I sit down at my cubicle and see a nice pile of white envelopes waiting to be opened and know that we are truly making an impact on these prisoners' lives.

Tunes and Time: Excerpts & Poems from a Daily Rikers Journal

Christian Rees, Correctional Services Volunteer — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:02:44 -0400

"The song remained; Kino knew them, but no new songs were added. That does not mean that there were no personal songs. In Kino's head there was a song now, clear and soft, and if he had been able to speak of it, he would have called it the Song of the Family." —The Pearl, John Steinbeck

I read this passage from The Pearl while waiting for the Count to be made and the inmates to be led in a thin trickle to our closet-sized library. Time to wait and contemplate what it was that I was about to give to Jake, the DOC inmate working Bing lunch duty that day. Time to wonder if this book would be more than just a diversion of time; more than a presence on the spare shelf in his cell. Whether the simple fact that he owned it would add motion to his stasis here in the New York City Jail system.

Would the words affect him?

How much time does Sam have left frozen on the Island? Is he on work detail because he's a trustee on the way out?

Or is he trusted because he's in there for a long long long time yet to come, all those weighty measures of time pressing him into the perfect trustee: mass converges down into a pearl, after all.

Is Sam a pearl of the system? Even a pearl isn't completely dead matter: hold it to your face and you'll catch the ghost of a face, half-recognizable in the contours.

I hope the words will speak to him, or at least murmur reassuringly.

The songs Kino longed for, recalls like the rhythms of physiology, are here in this jail too: no new songs are added behind the cinderblocks, lead paint, wired glass, barbed wire, the cold of the East River, the guards and their guns and clubs and gates. That doesn't mean no personal songs remain embedded in each DIN numbered man and woman and kid, Rikers' cinderblock villagers. In the yard, under the slim trunks of the hoops and light poles listen to the song of flight: pigeons from Astoria, gulls from the East River, the steel and plastic flocks of LaGuardia, simply the wind. In the halls the voices of men and all the children of the voices of men: jokes, jeers, laughter sweet, cruel, hollow, shouts, calls, the incoherent, the nonsensical, the beats and rhymes of a trio of jury-rigged rappers, a prayer, a breath.

What is the song of Jake S.? Of Walker the Bing Officer? Of Faulk, cell number 27, solitary, Bing unit, who shouted to us from the shower sequestered below the panopticon's floor, head and arm poking from the rectangular opening in the bars. The steam wreathed him and he had no face, only a voice that told us to make sure his requests were in for the library. To make sure we'd bring him something to sing his song to. Or to sing with. Or to sing for like a newborn, a sleeping ancestor, a headstone, the egg of a kept bird.

Upstate

These men, their stuffed

envelopes, their half-pages,

penned-in lines on blank paper.

No lines, small mercy, no grey lines

to remind chain links, barbed wire

of one last long, free expanse.

Each writer

puts up his own fences or none.

Their requests,

their “God Bless”, their “Allah

thank you”, their sincerely,

DIN numbers

last name

first, middle initial

taken, found, precious and purloined,

facts checked

materials referenced

slice open frank white envelopes,

my expectation

to uncover

sinister

caged voices.

No, they’re candid men asking questions.

Men who slipped

in beside their letters. Escape

just for a day or two,

until return addresses open the gates

beckon them to the lock.

They are best hand-writing,

best manners, good graces,

humbled words. Materials enclosed:

pry bars to slip through,

break the seams of walls wide.

Official clemency

to be Man

again.

From the Office of Dead Letters

Fishkill Correctional Facility:

150 requested reference pages.

Inmate # M-O-O-N, the caller down.

He wants to trace the craters

and seas and blackness.

Seek out his lunar kin.

He requested

star charts and an astrolabe

buried in a cake

thick with white-blue icing.

Sweet navigation. Cosmic jail-breaker.

No air up there at all, except

the air you imagine for your lungs.

Test the globe’s directions:

North, the wallop of the prison bricks.

South, warm breezes, Banyan trees,

wide, flat toads, poisonous and free.

East the living sea, not the petrified dust

sleeping in the sky.

And West? Gold. It’s always been that way.

Gold wheat that Inmate # M-O-O-N

scotch-taped to the wall

the warden-god sculpted

as his cell mate.

Wide and tall,

his impossibly spoon-proof roommate,

wired glass eyes, the furious,

ringing bars

his teeth.

There’s a diner at the four way stop,

out on Devil’s Gate Lane,

where the Bulls eat.

Inmate # M-O-O-N watches

through the depths

of star maps and chain-link fences.

In the front booth, so close

to plate glass so thin it hurts

to see the freedom reflected on the other side,

MOON’s light sits.

He orders coffee and speaks sweetly

to the waitress.

Far off,

under starlight,

MOON unfolds

his telescope and traces

Orion’s blind eyes,

the face gone to glass.

His abandoned coffee freezes through.

A shadow passes over the moon.

He ends this letter:

I humbly ask

would you please

lean a little closer

so I may pluck you

like a coin

from its purse.

A Utopian/Dystopian Adventure: Creating a Book Discussion for Metropolitan Detention Center

Hailley Fargo, Community Outreach Intern — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:55:55 -0400

While I've been actively working on the Veterans Oral History project, my behind-the-scenes project has been creating a book discussion syllabus for a book group at Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn.

MDC was opened in the early 1990s and holds about 1,000 inmates who are awaiting trial or are serving brief sentences. This past August, Nick and Brian (another NYPL librarian) started a 15 week book group revolving around American literature after 9/11. Some of their reading included The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, Terrorist by John Updike, and A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Along with these books, shorter articles are included to supplement the reading. Usually, the group met once a week to discuss the books and articles and got through one book every two weeks. Brian will be starting the program up again this spring but needed a topic.

Nick put me on the task: choose a broad topic, find books, and create a syllabus. Basically, create an English class an undergraduate would take. As an English major, this was my dream! I quickly got to work brainstorming topics; I had lots of good ideas but the topic that stuck out the most was utopia/dystopia. While there has recently been a big hype for dystopia fiction in young adult novels, authors of years and centuries past have tried to either predict the future or paint a picture of an ideal (or not so ideal) world.

So I ran with this theme. Here's what the book list is shaping up to be:

The first book has to be Thomas More's Utopia, a classic novel and really, the starting point and foundation of utopian literature. The second book is A Modern Utopia by H.G. Wells. This provides an opportunity to see how More influenced Wells but also allowed Wells took the genre in a new direction.

Edward Bellamy's Looking Backwards will be the third novel for this group. It's crucial in the genre of utopian literature for the fact it was so popular when published and even inspired the creation of utopian communities in the United States.

After reading three solid utopian novels, the fourth book would help create the discussion of what classifies as utopia and what classifies as dystopia. The book to do this is Erewhon by Samuel Butler. I figured this would be a good transition and also mark the halfway point of the class. This book was published in 1872, anonymously at first before Butler claimed it his own and later it was this novel that catapulted Butler to his literary fame.

With the discussion of utopia and dystopia present, the group will move more fully into the world of dystopias. Their next read is A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley because you really can't read about dystopias without reading it. Mention that novel to just about anyone and even though they might not have read it, they have a general idea of what it's about.

When you think of A Brave New World, there's a pretty good chance you also think of George Orwell and his Animal Farm or 1984. I didn't want to double up on authors, so chose 1984. While I enjoy Animal Farm, especially since it's a short read and the themes ring so clearly in today's society, I still felt 1984 would fit with the other novels better. I actually picked up 1984 to read because I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Already, within the first 100 pages I'm wrapped up with Winston Smith and his crazy mind Orwell lets us peek into. I hope the group will enjoy the book as much as I am.

To finish the 15 week group, I chose the graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore as their final book. I thought it would be a nice way to end the reading group and a way to see a more contemporary view of dystopia. In a perfect world, the book discussion would end with a showing of V for Vendetta, but sadly, that is not an option available to us. Nevertheless, it should be a good to wrap up the discussion.

I had a lot of fun pulling together this book list. It was difficult at times, especially when I had to narrow down the books from the 20 or so to the final seven I selected. Hopefully, if all goes well, I might able to head out to MDC one day to see my book group in action.

The Library on Rikers Island: Bringing Books, Newspapers and Magazines to Inmates

Miranda J. McDermott, Grand Concourse — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:05:45 -0500

NYPL Has Correctional Librarians? When I heard that the New York Public Library (NYPL) had a correctional librarian, you can bet that I was excited. I have an education background and recreational interest in criminal justice. I was fascinated to learn that NYPL visits Rikers, as well as other correctional institutions in and around New York City. Sarah Ball, Luis Torres, and a cadre of volunteers (some of whom work for NYPL) also answer inmate letters, organize the correctional special library, and help check out books to inmates on Rikers island.

Inmates Love the Library Service: The great thing about library service on Rikers Island is that the inmates are so appreciative. They love that we are there to bring them books, and they cherish the books because they often have little else to do, especially the inmates who are in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. They sometimes read the books, newspapers and magazines over and over. The inmates that we do not serve there always ask why we cannot provide book cart services to their houses (cell blocks).

Staying Safe: We bring the books, newspapers and magazines to inmates in the punitive or protective segregation. When I am at Rikers, I am very cognizant of my behavior; I'm courteous to inmates. I follow the directions of the Correctional Officers; they have a sixth sense about danger that I lack. If they say move left, I move left. If they want me to move right, I move right. I am glad that they are there to keep us safe.

Jail versus Prison: Rikers Island is a jail. A jail is a correctional facility that is designed to hold people accused of a crime and awaiting a trial, people convicted of a crime and awaiting sentencing, or people convicted of a crime and serving less than one year. Prisons hold people convicted of a crime and serving more than one year.

Great for Professional Development: The correctional services at NYPL and Rikers Island has been great for my professional development. Nick Higgins and Luis Torres are great to work with; they are so passionate about their work and dedicated to providing library services to inmates. While volunteering at Rikers, I met a former NYPL outreach librarian, who is so sweet and is very curious about my interests and professional activities. She is very knowledgeable, and I learn from her experience and perspective. I was also able to reconnect with a former colleague and learn about her online book discussion group. While getting an ID for Rikers, I met another volunteer who is an editor with a publishing company, and she is also pursuing a master's degree in library science. All of this I experienced, just because of Rikers!

How I Met Nick: I met Nick Higgins in 2010, soon after he became the NYPL Correctional Librarian. I went with a children's librarian from the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) to the Rose M. Singer correctional facility within Rikers to do a baby lap sit story time. There were three nannies and three babies in the nursery while we were there. It was cool; I hadn't walked in a jail for awhile (I've never been an inmate). Soon afterward, Higgins had a training for staff that were interested in volunteering at Rikers at the Bronx Library Center. I attended, and I met other staff who were already volunteering at Rikers or who were interested in doing so.

Discovering the Correctional Special Library: For awhile, I volunteered at the Mid-Manhattan Library, and I worked on arranging and cataloging the book collection housed there, including donations, that the correctional library staff brings to jails and prisons in the New York City area. I was able to learn much about the special correctional library within NYPL by volunteering to organize their book collection, which I compared to my experience being a solo librarian in a music school library, a synagogue library, and a preschool library in and around the Philadelphia area.

Prison Librarians Special Interest Group at Metro: The Metropolitan New York Library Council has Special Interest Groups (SIGs), one of which is for Prison Librarians. I went to one of their meetings, then joined Metro for a year. Nick Higgins was chairing the group at the time; now it is co-chaired by Sarah Ball, NYPL's Corrections Librarian, who has also written blogs about NYPL service on Rikers Island. I found the meeting very informative; I met a prison librarian from Sing Sing Prison on Staten Island, who later worked with Higgins to provide a tour of the Arthur Kill Prison library.

A Hiatus: Then, I was transferred to different libraries, and I did not work with Correctional Services for a couple of years. Then, when I started at the Grand Concourse Library in 2012, my supervisor asked if I wanted to go to Rikers. I said okay, I would fill in for the staff member on maternity leave. I was very excited to be working with Nick Higgins again, who is awesome.

NYPL Correctional Services Procedures: I like the way that Correctional Services at NYPL runs their volunteer program. Volunteers meet at 9 a.m. at the New Dream Deli in Queens, NY on Tuesday, Thursdays, and Fridays. (Volunteers sign up for the particular days that work for them. Then, we go by car and/or bus to Rikers Island. Then we go to the NYPL office in the George R. Vierno Center (GRVC). Inmates can borrow one book and magazine. They can have two poetry books or two foreign language books, instead, since there is less demand for those materials. We usually cart many books and magazines to the NYPL office at Rikers Island. They usually want a Metro newspaper and we also give out the Village Voice newspaper.

We have a rolling cart that we pile high with the popular fiction of James Patterson and others, nonfiction books like GED exam preparation books, and we have boxes of National Geographic and comics, which are very popular. We also have bags filled with newspapers that hang from poles that protrude from one end of the cart. The prisoners have as much of a selection as we can pack onto the rolling cart. The mobile library from NYPL visits Rikers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then we roll the cart to different cell blocks (or "houses" as the inmates call them). We unload the newspapers from the carts and put them on the floor, and we put the boxes of National Geographic and comics on the floor for the inmates to make their selections. (Unfortunately, we do not have tables to use.) The inmates love the newspapers especially; even inmates who do not want a book or magazine often choose to take some newspapers.

The Correctional Officers and Torres or Ball ask for book returns first. Inmates cannot check out additional items if they have materials that have not been returned. The inmates form a line, and they wait they turn. Inmates can make requests while they are looking for books, which the NYPL Correctional Services staff will make every effort to fulfill or to find a suitable substitute. For the punitive and protective custody areas, we bring newspapers, magazines and books. We are usually done by 3 p.m., due to other activities that the Rikers Island facility engages in. There is no lunch period; volunteers can bring snacks in clear plastic bags. There are no formal breaks.

Lock downs: Occasionally, the day is interrupted by a "lock down." A lock down is where movement by nonessential personnel is restricted due to a security risk, as determined by the Rikers Island Correctional staff. We could be waiting for 15 minutes or a half-hour. Some days, volunteers cannot enter the jail facility, due to a serious lock down. However, most days, the lock down procedures do not take more than one half-hour.

Standing Library and Nursery Story times: There is a standing library which NYPL staff and volunteers set up in a room at Rikers on Fridays. Also, sometimes, NYPL staff and/or volunteers are able to visit the nursery at Rikers Island and do baby lap sit story times.

Library Service in Correctional Institutions: Library service in jails and prisons can vary greatly. Some jails and prisons have paid librarians, some may have inmate workers, and some may have no library service at all. The New York Public Library is lucky that we are able to provide library service to these New Yorkers who otherwise might not have access to their favorite books, magazines, comic books and newspapers.

Volunteer Dress Code: Rikers has a certain dress code that must be followed, since the library service is not a mandated program. Volunteers should not wear blue or green, since they do not want to be confused with the inmates. Also, metal hair clips are prohibited. Volunteers are asked to wear long sleeves, even in the summertime, and there is no air conditioning at Rikers. If the heat bothers volunteers, they should keep that in mind when scheduling visits to Rikers.

Volunteering with the NYPL correctional services at Rikers Island is a terrific experience; the NYPL staff and volunteers are great to work with!

Volunteer at Rikers or learn more about NYPL correctional services by contacting:

Sarah Ball
Corrections Librarian

sarahball@nypl.org
212-340-0971

Learn more about the NYPL Correctional Services.

Donate books

(Libraries and individuals can donate books.)

The highest need is for urban fiction, books on conspiracy theories, popular authors such as James Patterson, Dan Brown, Ludlum, Sheldon, Baldacci, etc. and other popular series such as The Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Grey, Twilight, etc.

Call ahead of time.

Sarah Ball
212-340-0971
455 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10016

Resources

Connections: a guide for ex-inmates to information sources in New York City, plus The job search
Available as a PDF. Contact Nick Higgins for a copy or use the book at your local library in New York City.
Books Through Bars in NYC
Criminal justice journals
Books about Rikers Island
NYC Department of Correction
American Jail Association
Correctional Association of New York
Women's Prison Association
American Correctional Association
Prison Policy Initiative
International Corrections and Prisons Association
More posts filed under Freedom of Thought

Criminal Justice Special Libraries and Museums

Miranda J. McDermott, Grand Concourse — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 13:40:46 -0400

I have been intrigued by why and how people commit crimes since I was young. This interest led to me devouring true crime stories as a child and true crime TV shows as an adult. I also got a master's degree in forensic psychology, and I have interned in several jails. Below are some criminal justice libraries and museums that I found.

Special Libraries

from the Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers, 40th ed., 2012

American Correctional Association - Anthony P. Travisono Library
4380 Forbes Blvd.
Lanham, MD 20706-4322 USA
www.aca.org
301-918-1894
Founded: 1973. Staff: 1. Subjects: Corrections, correctional institutions, offenders, criminal justice. Special Collections: Yes. Publications: Yes.

American Jail Association Library
1135 Professional Ct.
Hagerstown, MD 21740-5853 USA
www.aja.org
301-790-3930
Founded: 1981. Staff: 13. Subjects: Jails, corrections, criminal justice.

Australia Ministry of Justice - Library Services
141 Saint Georges Terrace, 10th Fl.
Westralia Sq.
Perth, Western Australia 6000, Australia
www.justice.wa.gov.au/
Phone: 61 8 92646105
Staff: Prof 1; Other 1. Subjects: Criminal justice, corrections, law, penology, social work. Electronic Resources: Yes.

Basque Institute of Criminology Library
Centro Carlos Santamaria Zentroa
Elhuyar plaza, 2
E-20013 San Sebastian, Spain
www.ivac.ehu.es/p278-home/es
Phone: 34 943017484
Subjects: Criminology.

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence Library
1225 Eye St. NW, Ste. 1100
Washington, DC 20005 USA
www.bradycenter.org
202-289-7319
Founded: 1983. Staff: Prof 1. Subjects: Handgun violence, firearms litigation, accidental shootings, Second Amendment, gun control, children and guns, violence prevention. Electronic Resources: Yes. Publications: Yes.

British Columbia Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission - Forensic Psychiatric Services Resource Center
70 Colony Farm Rd.
Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada V3C 5X9
www.bcmhas.ca/ForensicService/default.htm
604-523-7700
Founded: 1986. Staff: 1. Subjects: Forensic psychiatry, psychiatry, psychology, nursing, social sciences, criminology, forensic social work. Electronic Resources: Yes.

Canadian Police College Library
PO Box 8900
1 Sandridge Rd.
Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 3J2
www.cpc.gc.ca/library-biblio
613-993-3225
Founded: 1936. Staff: Prof 4; Other 6. Subjects: Police science, criminal justice, management, criminology, sociology. Electronic Resources: Yes. Networks/Consortia: Member of Federal Libraries Coordination Secretariat (FCLS). Publications: Yes. Also Known As: CPC Library; Bibliotheque du CCP; Bibliotheque du College Canadien de Police; Royal Canadian Mounted Police Library; Bibliotheque de la Gendarmerie Royale du Canada.

European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control Affiliated with the United Nations Library
PO Box 444
FIN-00531 Helsinki, Finland
www.heuni.fi
Phone: 358 10 3665280
Founded: 1990. Staff: 7. Subjects: Crime, criminal justice. Also Known As: Institut d'Europe pour la Prevention du Crime et la Lutte Contre la Delinquance Affile a l'Organization des Nations Unies.

Federal Judicial Center - Information Services Office
1 Columbus Cir., NE
Washington, DC 20002-8003 USA
www.fjc.gov
202-502-4153
Founded: 1968. Staff: Prof 2; Other 3. Subjects: Judicial administration, court management, civil and criminal procedure. Electronic Resources: Yes. Networks/Consortia: Member of Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK). Publications: Yes.

Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre Library
PO Box 174
Fredericton, NB, Canada E3B 4Y9
www.fsacc.ca
506-454-0460
Founded: 1983. Subjects: Sexual assault, childhood sexual abuse, violence against women, sexual harassment, women's issues.

Germany Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation Library
Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation
65173 Wiesbaden, Germany
www.bka.de/
Phone: 49 611 5512397.Fax: 49 611 5512379.
Founded: 1952. Staff: Prof 8. Subjects: Criminology, penal law, police law, natural sciences, administration, technology. Electronic Resources: Yes. Publications: Yes. Also Known As: Bundeskriminalamt - Bibliothek.

Howard League for Penal Reform Library
1 Ardleigh Rd.
London N1 4HS, United Kingdom
www.howardleague.org
Phone: 44 207 2497373
Staff: 10. Subjects: Penology, criminology. Publications: Yes.

Hungary National Institute of Criminology and Criminalistics Library
Maros u 6/a
Pf 41
H-1122 Budapest, Hungary
en.okri.hu/content/view/14/34
Phone: 36 1 3567282
Founded: 1960. Staff: Prof 1. Subjects: Criminology, criminalistics, crime prevention, criminal psychology. Also Known As: Orszagos Kriminologiai es Kriminalisztikai Intezet.

Indiana Law Enforcement Academy - David F. Allen Memorial Learning Resources Center
Box 313
Plainfield, IN 46168-0313 USA
www.in.gov/ilea
317-839-5191
Founded: 1975. Staff: Prof 1; Other 1. Subjects: Police science, law enforcement, criminology, weapons, drugs. Special Collections: Yes. Electronic Resources: Yes. Publications: Yes.

Institute of Forensic Research Library
ul Westerplatte 9
PL-31-033 Krakow, Poland
ies.krakow.pl
Phone: 48 12 4228755
Founded: 1929. Staff: Prof 2. Subjects: Toxicology, forensic chemistry, criminalistics, forensic psychology, forensic haemogemetics, road accident analysis. Special Collections: Yes. Electronic Resources: Yes. Also Known As: Instytut Ekspertyz Sadowych - Biblioteka.

International Criminal Police Organization Library
200, quai Charles de Gaulle
F-69006 Lyon, France
http://www.interpol.int
Subjects: Police science, criminal law, forensic sciences.

Ireland Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform Library
94 St. Stephen's Green
Dublin 2, Dublin, Ireland
www.justice.ie
Phone: 353 1 6028359
Founded: 1998. Staff: 5. Subjects: Law - English, Irish; All-England Law Reports; Irish Law Reports; Halsbury's Law of England; Archbold Criminal Pleadings; Acts of the Oireachtas; British Acts; Dail and Seanad Debates; Statutory Instruments English, Irish.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice of CUNY - Lloyd George Sealy Library
899 10th Ave.
New York, NY 10019 USA
www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu
212-237-8246
Founded: 1965. Staff: Prof 12; Other 10. Subjects: Criminal justice, government, fire science, forensic science, forensic psychology, public administration, police science. Special Collections: Yes. Electronic Resources: Yes. Networks/Consortia: Member of Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO). Publications: Yes.

Legal Aid Society - Central Library and Information Center
199 Water St.
New York, NY 10038 USA
www.legal-aid.org
212-577-3300
Founded: 1876. Staff: Prof 3; Other 7. Subjects: Law - criminal, civil, juvenile rights; social services. Electronic Resources: Yes.

Moscow Institute for Legality, Law & Order Problems Library
2-ya Zvenigorodskaya, 15
Moscow, Russia
Phone: 7 95 2531341.Fax: 7 95 2565443.
Founded: 1963. Subjects: Law, crime, psychology.

National Association of Investigative Specialists Library
PO Box 82148
Austin, TX 78708 USA
www.pimall.com/nais/nais.j.html
512-719-3595
Founded: 1984. Staff: 6. Subjects: Private investigation, social science, criminal law. Electronic Resources: Yes. Publications: Yes.

National Center for Computer Crime Data
1714 Brommer
Santa Cruz, CA 95062 USA
831-475-4457
Founded: 1978. Staff: 4. Subjects: Computer crime, security, ethics. Special Collections: Yes.

National Center for Victims of Crime Library
2000 M St. NW, Ste. 480
Washington, DC 20036 USA
www.ncvc.org
202-467-8700
Founded: 1986. Staff: Prof 2. Subjects: Victims of violent crimes, legislation, national and local victim organizations, criminal justice, nonprofit Organization management. Electronic Resources: Yes. Publications: Yes.

National Crime Prevention Council Resource Center
2001 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Ste. 901
Arlington, VA 22202-4801 USA
www.ncpc.org
202-466-6272
Subjects: Crime prevention, juvenile delinquency, child abuse, youth, sexual abuse, sexual assault, gun control, domestic violence. Publications: Yes.

National Sheriffs’ Association - Education and Resource Center
1450 Duke St.
Alexandria, VA 22314-3490 USA
www.sheriffs.org
703-836-7827
Founded: 1940. Subjects: Law enforcement, corrections, criminal justice. Special Collections: Yes.

New York City Criminal Court Library
120 Schermerhorn St.
RM 509B
Brooklyn, NY 11201
347-404-9429
Staff: Prof 1; Other 2. Subjects: Criminal law, family law, landlord tenant. Special Collections: Yes. Electronic Resources: Yes.

New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner - Milton Helpern Library of Legal Medicine
455 1st Ave., Rm. 1200
New York, NY 10016 USA
www.nyc.gov/html/ocme/html/home/home.shtml
212-447-2030
Founded: 1962. Subjects: Legal medicine, forensic pathology, forensic toxicology, forensic serology, criminology, forensic immunology. Special Collections: Yes.

New York City Police Deparment - Training Resource Center Library
235 E. 20th St., Rm. 639
New York, NY 10003 USA
212-477-9723
Founded: 1964. Subjects: Criminal justice, police science, law, social science, forensic science. Publications: Yes.

Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole Library
1101 S. Front St., Ste. 5600
Harrisburg, PA 17104-2522 USA
717-787-6151.
Founded: 1975. Staff: 1. Subjects: Criminal justice, psychology, sociology. Electronic Resources: Yes.

Prison Fellowship Information Center
44180 Riverside Pkwy.
Lansdowne, VA 20176 USA
www.prisonfellowship.org/prison-fellowship-home
703-478-0100 / 877-478-0100
Staff: Prof 1; Other 2. Subjects: Criminal justice and criminal justice reform, corrections, Christian theology and life. Electronic Resources: Yes.

Queensland Police Museum Library
GPO Box 1440
Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia
www.police.qld.gov.au/aboutUs/facilities/museum
Phone: 61 7 33646432
Founded: 1893. Staff: 5. Subjects: Queensland police history, policing, police administration, police education and training, public policy, criminology, law, social sciences. Publications: Yes.

Sri Lanka - Department of Prisons - Centre for Research and Training in Corrections Library
150 Baseline Rd.
Colombo 09, Sri Lanka
www.prisons.gov.lk
Phone: 94 11 4677177
Founded: 1978. Subjects: Criminology, sociology, psychology, management. Special Collections: Yes.

U.S. Dept. of Justice - Federal Bureau of Prisons Library
320 1st St., NW
Bldg. 400, 3rd Fl.
Washington, DC 20534 USA
bop.library.net
202-307-3029
Founded: 1960. Staff: Prof 1; Other 2. Subjects: Corrections, criminal psychology, criminology, penology. Electronic Resources: Yes. Networks/Consortia: Member of Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK). Publications: Yes.

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation - FBI Library
MCB No. 4
Quantico, VA 22135 USA
fbilibrary.fbiacademy.edu
703-632-3200
Founded: 1972. Staff: Prof 4; Other 9. Subjects: Law enforcement, police, criminal justice. Electronic Resources: Yes. Networks/Consortia: Member of Federal Library and Information Network (FEDLINK). Publications: Yes.

University of Applied Police Sciences Library
Sturmbuehlstr. 250
D-78054 Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany
www.hfpol-vs.de/ge
Phone: 49 7720 309295
Founded: 1979. Staff: 3. Subjects: Rights, criminals, police tactics, psychology, politics, management. Special Collections: Yes. Electronic Resources: Yes.

Vera Institute of Justice - Louise Schweitzer Library
233 Broadway, 12th Fl.
New York, NY 10279 USA
www.vera.org
212)376-3150
Staff: 1.5. Subjects: Criminal justice and public policy. Special Collections: Yes. Electronic Resources: Yes. Networks/Consortia: Member of Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO).

Virginia Department of Corrections - Academy for Staff Development Library
PO Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261-6963 USA
www.vadoc.state.va.us
804-784-6805
Founded: 1976. Staff: Prof 1; Other 1. Subjects: Corrections, criminal justice, management, psychology, treatment and therapy, training and development. Electronic Resources: Yes. Publications: Yes.

Museums

A Glimpse of Life on the Inside: Reflections on Rikers Island Correctional Library Service

Ryan P. Donovan, Mid-Manhattan Library — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:40:38 -0400

The typical reaction I received from many co-workers after telling them that I wanted to go to Rikers Island was, “...why? Isn’t that dangerous?” I considered that question. Would it be dangerous? Quite possibly... but after meeting with prison librarians Nick Higgins and Luis Torres, taking a trip with them out to Rikers Island was never far from my mind. Several times each week as part of the library’s Correctional Services Program, Nick and Luis alternate going out to Rikers Island and to other facilities in order to offer books to incarcerated inmates. Each week, Nick and Luis bring much needed volunteers to aid them. On March 3rd, I was one of those volunteers.

I’m not sure exactly what I thought would happen when I took my first trip out to Rikers. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was unsure what would happen. Part of me was excited for a new adventure. The other part of me kept remembering all those co-workers who warned me it might be dangerous. I just kept thinking to myself that, without the library’s involvement, many of the people I met that day probably wouldn’t be able to get their hands on a book. There’s something that kind of upsets me about that. I believe that everyone should get the chance to read.

I spent the afternoon in the George R. Vierno Center, or the GRVC, for short. The prison provides a modest storage space for books and magazines, almost all of which are donations. Along with Mr. Torres, a volunteer from the Brooklyn Public Library and a retired NYPL librarian rounded out our motley crew. In about three hours my group was able to visit three separate cell blocks. To say that the prisoners were glad to see us would be an understatement. Generally, each inmate is offered one book and one magazine. Many fast readers were disappointed; they wanted more books than that. We got asked a lot when would be the next that we could return.

We began visiting each block by asking for book returns. Then, each volunteer provided a book for interested inmates after this was completed. I helped a total of 34 prisoners to “check out” a book. One prisoner told me that it wasn’t until he came to prison, and the library started visiting, that he learned how to read. Many of the inmates were voracious in their reading appetites. Everything from James Patterson to Nora Roberts was popular, from books on war to books on philosophy. Comic books were favorites, as well as one inmate who loved the Warhammer sci-fi series.

In the end, I was really glad I got the chance to go to Rikers Island. It proved to be a worthwhile and rewarding experience. Many of the prisoners I met on this day were respectful, even polite, as I attempted to help them select a book to read. It was also very heartening to see so many of the inmates want not just a book, but as many books at they could get their hands on. Hopefully, I will get the opportunity to go back soon. For me, this brought home what a much needed service it is and how it needs support. Learn how you can get involved.

Prisoners' Rights and NYPL Correctional Services

Trevor Owen Jones — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:50:14 -0400

Reference question: when did the largest prison strike in the history of the United States occur? 1890? The 1930s maybe? Wait, was it Attica in 1971?

The answer: December 2010.

That's right, the largest strike by incarcerated individuals in an American correctional facility occurred just late last year in Georgia, was brutally suppressed and silenced, and passed with barely a ripple of attention from mainstream media. Granted, it's not as exciting as (rich, white, notably not poor and black) Charlie Sheen's laundry list of addictions, but the deliberate inattention paid to the story seems symptomatic of obvious, much larger looming systemic issues no one really wishes to discuss on talking-head television.

A coordinated effort by white, black and Latino inmates across six different institutions statewide managed to transcend gang dynamics (gangs are always a mechanism of control, not resistance) and suspend the "business as usual" structural violence of inhuman bureaucracy that is instutional incarceration. The prisoners' demands included a living wage for work, opportunity to pursue education and a GED, basic and decent healthcare, an end to cruel and unusual punishments, decent living conditions, nutritional meals, vocational and self-improvement opportunities, access to families, and just parole decisions. As of April 2011, we do know that the strike's organizers were harassed, denied medical treatment and some completely disappeared from their assigned facility.

It's a sorry state of affairs in fact when no rhetoric at all is necessary to polemicize on the American prison industry: all we have to do is trot out some numbers and facts from the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

In 2009, over 7.2 million people were under some form of correctional supervision.

As of 2007, black males were incarcerated at a rate more than 6.5 times that of white males and only 2.5 that of Hispanic males.

As of 2008, the United States has less than 5% of the world's population, and 23.4% of the world's prison population.

According to Noah Zatz at UCLA Law, "well over 600,000, and probably close to a million, inmates are working full time in jails and prisons throughout the United States. Perhaps some of them built your desk chair: office furniture, especially in state universities and the federal government, is a major prison labor product. Inmates also take hotel reservations at corporate call centers, make body armor for the U.S. military, and manufacture prison chic fashion accessories, in addition to the iconic task of stamping license plates." We have a word for work without pay—slavery—and we know of a work of fiction that depicts a large powerful nation that used large pools of unpaid labor to produce things: The Gulag Archipelago. Think that's hyperbole? Perhaps you should consider visiting your local state prison.

Of course, it is not in this writer's expertise nor interest to judge on the conditions of the New York State Correctional System and its comparison to other states' or federal facilities. However, as Noam Chomsky has said of intellectuals, this writer at times feels the same of some librarians: those librarians who do little in the public interest, are blind to social injustice, and adamantly pretend economic disparities do not exist or are 'natural' to society. This assessment utterly and of the utmost cannot be said of the dedicated, earnest and humanistic work done by New York Public correctional librarians Nicholas Higgins and Luis Torres.

Currently the New York Public Library enjoys the privilege of offering library services to inmates at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility. The two staff members work with a revolving cast of volunteers providing book cart service, returning letters to inmates located upstate, and continually outreaching to other city institutions. Higgins' initiatives have garnered some press as well over the past year or two, and he continues to make innovative inroads for excellence of service as a prison librarian.

Here's how you can get involved:

The goal of NYPL's Correctional Services Program is to get books into hands of incarcerated New Yorkers and to provide inmates accurate information on useful community resources upon release; they currently have a zero dollar book budget, and rely solely on donations. They are most in need of:

Urban Lit, Paperback dictionaries, GED books, Popular fiction, Vampire fiction, Dream interpretation & astrology books, biographies, small business & personal finance books, computer books, African-American history, Latino history, books in Spanish, and magazines or comic books of all kinds. All titles must be paperback copies. Email nicholas_higgins@nypl.org, ltorres@nypl.org, or myself trevor_owen_jones@nypl.org for more information on how to donate.

Also, please check out New York City's chapter of Books Thru Bars or donate to them at Bluestockings Bookstore.

Education and literacy are rights and should be available to everyone, universally and without qualification of any kind: let's not take them for granted while others are fighting for them against extraordinary odds only a few hundred miles away.

Daddy & Me

Sarah Ball, Supervising Librarian, Correctional Services — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 06:02:59 -0500

Last week Correctional Services completed a new program at Rikers Island called Daddy & Me. The program is designed to encourage early literacy efforts for incarcerated fathers. After two workshops on the importance of early literacy and storytelling skills, the dads involved began to record stories for their children. There were eight men in the program, most of them with more than one young child. We recorded them reading their children's favorite books and this morning they presented the finished CDs with the books to their kids. The program went wonderfully with the help of a few very dedicated people in both the library and the jail. The fathers themselves put forth amazing effort and produced some beautiful recordings for their kids. A few of them had great fun while others fought timidity and trepidation to get through the recording process. The kids were incredible, cute, in love with their dads and genuinely excited the books themselves! We could clearly see that we did our job well.

I dare anyone to find a more warm and fuzzy program than this. I don't say that with any irony or with any disregard for the program's potential for lasting change. It truly is an encouraging and special entryway into similar and expanded programming for more inmates and their children. With the Daddy & Me program we hope to garner attention in the form of new grants, new patrons (such as other correctional facilities in New York and other housing units within Rikers), and media coverage. We already have a plan to begin the program anew with some of the mothers at Rikers next month. Without exploiting the private moments between parent and child, we need to use the Daddy & Me program as an example of the power of books in the process of rehabilitation and simply, the joys and benefits of early literacy. But just as importantly, we need to show that programs with immediate and tangible impact are not the only programs worth supporting. There are still thousands of inmates at Rikers Island who do not have access to general library service and expanding our service to reach them is a very high priority for us.

This program is supported in part by the New York State Library’s Family Literacy Library Services grant program.

Corrections Librarian in the Spotlight - Tooting Our Own Horn

Nick Higgins, Correctional Services Program — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:32:03 -0400

The following blog post was created by Julia Weist, regular columnist for the Desk Set. Ms. Weist was very generous to highlight NYPL's Correctional Services in a feature and succeeded in capturing exactly what goes into this unique library work. She also came to Rikers (on very short notice) to assist with our mobile library on a day where we were short staffed. Both Mr. Torres and I thank Ms. Weist for her support. Read the original post here.

By Julia Weist, julia@deaccession.org

Growing up, my father was the production designer for a violent television show that took place in a prison. When Nick Higgins, Correctional Services Librarian at New York Public Library, invited me to do a day of library service at Rikers, I thought: I spent my childhood in a fake jail–it’ll be like second nature, right? But then, on the Q100 out to the island, Luis Torres, Information Assistant, told me that there was the possibility that an alarm could sound during our service. “If that happens,” he explained calmly, “we’ll stop and enter a safe space. The alarm signifies a riot or the injury of a correctional officer by an inmate.” Honestly reader, I got scared, and I got scared again when I saw the riot gear, and again when I checked out the first book to the first prisoner in cell block 6.

And then it got easier. After a dozen check-outs an inmate told me he was going to re-draw every page of comic he was taking, explaining he does so every week, and I told him I was an artist too. I wrote down requests for 1984, Walden, UFO, and business management books. By noon I felt that there needed to be 10 more of Nick Higgins and Luis Torres. The books were looking to me like the difference between correctional services and purgatory.

I urge every New Yorker to advocate for library services in correctional facilities; the work described below is not mandated by the Department of Corrections: it’s a NYPL program. Because of limited resources and staff, the service doesn’t extend to every inmate at Rikers. If you have the time and inclination, reach out to Nick, spend a day working with him as a volunteer. I highly recommend the experience for every librarian who feels a responsibility to every reader, “no matter where they happen to be.”

What’s your background? Have you always worked in Correctional Services Librarianship?

I graduated from Pratt in May of 2009. I was part of the now dissolved IMLS funded PULSE librarian trainee program through Brooklyn Public Library and Pratt. PULSE was set up to provide library school students real work experience rotating through several branches and departments at BPL as a full time trainee. I was fortunate to have had many great mentors at BPL who encouraged me to do work that I thought would be useful to people in Brooklyn. This led to a whole range of interesting jobs. For the first year I was at BPL I rotated around to different branches in the system working at whatever staff would let me do. I manned the reference desk, processed library cards, ran children’s programs, book talks, writing workshops, and went on a lot of school visits. I also picked up a mop every once in a while when one of the kids at a branch would throw up. These were all daily events at a public library and I found it all pretty fascinating.

Later on a colleague in the Brooklyn Collection archive and I decided to put together a Veterans Oral History Project. We got a small digital recorder and started inviting ourselves to VFV and DAV meetings around Brooklyn. Soon we found ourselves sitting sipping coffee in church basements from Bay Ridge to Brighton Beach listening to stories about combat duty from Brooklyn Veterans in wars going back to WWII. The stories we recorded are now at the Brooklyn Collection and the Library of Congress. After that I worked with the Child’s Place for Children with Special Needs where, among other things, I helped coordinate a program working with kids with low vision and blindness learn table manners and dining etiquette. The Child’s Place also let me drive the Kidsmobile (BPL’s library on wheels) when Clyde, the regular driver, wasn’t available. We’d drive to parks, schools and street fairs and read books and sing songs to whatever kids we found there. We signed people up for library cards and let them check out books from the truck. This was easily my favorite job at the library. Later I was able to work as a one-on-one job search librarian. People would make an appointment with me and I’d help them research ways to prepare for the world of work including reviewing resumes, conducting mock interviews and identifying potential employment opportunities. I also got a chance to work with formerly incarcerated fathers in several programs. By the end of my stay at BPL I was the acting manager of Volunteer Services. A couple months into that job James Huffman, my predecessor in Correctional Services, called me to say he was retiring and suggested I apply for the job. Despite all the wonderful opportunities BPL had offered me during my three years there, I knew that Correctional Services was the job that I was preparing for. It was hard to leave Brooklyn but it was the right decision.

How many librarians are involved in the Correctional Services program at New York Public? How big is your department and how is it organized? Are there different librarians for different facilities (you mentioned Sing Sing and Rikers)?

There are two staff members in Correctional Services at NYPL. I am the sole librarian on staff. Luis Torres, my colleague, is an Information Assistant. Luis and I run four mobile libraries and one standing library at Rikers Island. We also coordinate a Baby Lapsit program in the nursery out there. Babies who are born to incarcerated women on the Island are allowed to stay with their moms for up to a year. Luis and I bring in Children’s Librarians from NYPL and BPL to read to the babies, sing songs, do finger plays, etc. If we can’t find a children’s librarian for the visit, I do it.

In October I was asked by the Assistant Principal at the girls’ High School at Rikers to help them build up their library. The library looked to me to be a repository for books donated by no doubt well-intentioned people who nonetheless decided, consciously or otherwise, that incarcerated teen girls would be happy reading whatever they were sent, despite the subject matter or condition. I found many books on menopause, GED books dating back to 1987, way too many copies of a Barbra Streisand biography, and a lot of Norman Mailler for some reason – among several other books that were wholly inappropriate for teen girls in 2010. I brought in a few great library school students from Pratt to help with the project. Each week we spent a few hours in the library weeding the several hundred seriously crappy books from the collection and replacing them with books we dragged out there in duffel bags. After a couple months the students from Pratt took over the project and basically revamped the library by themselves. The library looks great now and we hope to start programming with the incarcerated teens when the school year starts again.

We also employ several volunteers to help us answer the 50 or so letters we receive each week from inmates around the country. Volunteers help us write blogs, update our annual re-entry guide Connections, organize and weed our ever expanding collection of donated books, they write thank you letters to people who send us books, and they sometimes help us push around our book carts at jails on Rikers. Luis and I also give monthly presentations at 6 State Facilities, like Sing Sing, and a Federal Prison. Because of strict clearance issues we don’t have volunteers help with this.

What is a typical day is like for you? When you visit the facility, do you bring only material that has been requested by inmates or do you do collection development for a onsite collection?

You should come with us sometime to see what a day is like at Rikers if you want. There is really nothing typical about any day we work, which is pretty nice. In a typical week Luis and I are out at Rikers a total of three days. Tuesdays and Thursdays we run our mobile libraries and on Fridays I go in to lead the standing library.

When we do the mobile libraries we meet in the morning at a deli in Long Island City Queens. The New Dream Deli on Jackson. We usually have a couple volunteers meet us.

The Q 100 bus to Rikers Island stops out front and we hop on and ride the bus to the jail. Luis and I are usually weighed down by several bags filled with inmate book requests, magazines, newspapers, circulation sheets, and copies of Connections books. The bus is usually filled with other service providers, attorneys, Rikers staff and inmate families. Once we get to the jail we check to see if the front gate has copies of clearance papers for our volunteers. If we are cleared to go we pass to the back of the building to a bay of Rikers buses that take people to the ten different jails on the Island. Once we get to the facility where we are doing the service, we pass through more security, including an x-ray machine, and head to a small office where we store our book cart and a small collection of books we use or inmates at that facility. We replenish the book cart with new books, check to see if we can fill any requests from inmates with the collection of books, then we head out to do the service.

At each facility it’s a little different, but basically we roll the cart into a housing area. Each housing area has two sides, an A Side and a B Side, with at least one Officer sitting in an elevated room, or “Bubble,” that overlooks both sides. There is also at least one Officer sitting inside the dorm areas. The dorm areas look different at each jail. Some are open with several rows of beds on the floor, and others have a large common area surrounded by perimeter of individual cells. When we enter an area we announce that the library is there and the inmates will form a line and those who have books to return from the previous week will get first choice at the book cart. One of us, usually Luis, will check in the books and our volunteer(s) and I will help the inmate choose another book for the week. These men and women will often ask for suggestions and sometimes we have time to talk about what they like to read and what they found interesting about the books they have read. This is regular library work at its best in my opinion. It also may be the first time all week that someone has looked them in the eye and asked them their opinion about anything. “What did you think of the book?” A question like that goes a long way with some of the people we see at Rikers. When an inmate finds a book (they are also able to take a magazine and a daily newspaper) they give us their inmate ID and we write down their name, inmate Book and Case number, the title of the book and magazine, and whatever titles they’d like us to look for next time around. We are not allowed any electronic equipment in the jail, so all of this is done by hand.

Every other week we also visit the solitary confinement area, or ‘Bing’ in a male facility. We work with staff there to deliver books requested by inmates from an inventory list of books in a collection reserved just for them.

The standing library is a relatively new project for us. We run it at the EMTC jail on Rikers. A while back I drove out about 2,000 books to the jail and stored them in a closet in the back of an old gymnasium. An Officer in the Programs office helped us get a bunch of shallow crates (used primarily to store bread) and we lined the crates with these books. Now on Friday mornings we pull these crates from storage and place them on long tables the length of the gym. The Officer then calls down housing areas to the gym and guys can browse the books we have and we sign them out just like in our mobile libraries. In many ways this is a better way to do the service. This feels more like a library. There’s a better opportunity to browse and talk about books. We have more conversations with the inmates about what they like to read and it really feels oddly normal, which is the point. If they can look at libraries as something positive, not intimidating, non-judgmental, and just a regular part of a normal life, then there’s a good shot at these guys using the library when they get out.

Are you working with only books and periodicals or also moving image and sound material?

We’re not allowed to bring out audio books or DVDs or anything like that. Books, newspapers, mags. That’s it. Although we just got approved to bring in a digital recorder to record incarcerated fathers reading a book to their kids. What I’ll do is transfer the recording to a CD and send it to the inmate’s family along with a copy of the book. I’ve read about similar projects over the years and I had it in my back pocket for a while. There happens to be a new Deputy at the jail who was looking for a program idea and I pitched it, and alas, he loved it. So, we’re set to start recording in September. I’m pretty excited about it.

Outside of Rikers we visit different state prisons, about 4 or 5 times a month to talk to inmates about to be released about library services available to them when they get back to the city. We sign them up for library cards, give them an orientation to NYPL, and I’ll occasionally do a book talk.

Other days, we spend at the office (this is rare) where Luis will transfer all of our handwritten circulation sheets to the computer and I catch up on answering inmate letters and emails. Normal office stuff. I am also in the process of editing the Connections guide. Every now and again I will go out to someone’s house or an organization to pick up book donations.

Is there anything you wished the public, or the government, was more aware of about your readers in correctional facilities?

I guess I’d just like other librarians, members of the public, or whoever to know that it’s a responsibility of the public library to provide access to information to everyone, no matter where they happen to be. A book isn’t going to be the sole thing that turns a person’s life around, but it’s an opportunity to hook someone into a positive habit. The best part of my job comes when a guy I gave a book to pulls me aside and can’t stop talking about the it. It may have been the first book he’s read in years. He may identify certain traits in a character that he sees in himself, some things that are good or bad, but most importantly, just a self-consciousness that was triggered by reading the book. I think that’s a step in the right direction.

Prisons We Choose to Live Inside

Sarah Ball, Supervising Librarian, Correctional Services — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:42:22 -0400

I recently read Doris Lessing's 1987 collection of essays, Prisons We Choose to Live Inside. As an intern with the Correctional Services Program at NYPL, the book had layers of meaning for me. Lessing shares her wisdom, her unapologetic inquiries, and her unique experience through four essays on human behavior.

Her approach is rational and clear. She asks us to use our powerful tools of reflection to amend our behavior, to uplift our treatment of one another to a higher plane. She identifies those tools, unique to human beings, as our greatest assets. My work with NYPL has given me the opportunity to help revamp the library within Rosewood High School for girls at Rikers Island and my work in library school currently has me researching technology training and digital citizenship for prison inmates. In trying to imagine new library programs for the young women at Rosewood, I have returned to Lessing's work many times. She is a constant reminder of the need to ask for more than mere skills from our systems of education. The passage below describes so well the challenge that must be met: the creation of learning environments that allow students to value themselves as learners, as crucial players in the improvement and empowerment of their communities.

From Prisons We Choose to Live Inside:

"We have to look at the word useful again. In the long run what is useful is what survives, revives, comes to life in different contexts. It may look now as if people educated to use our newest technologies efficiently are the world's elite, but in the long run I believe that people educated to have, as well, that point of view that used to be described as humanistic - the long-term, over-all, comtemplative point of view - will turn out to be more influential. Simply because they undertsand more of what is going on in the world. It is not that I undervalue the new technicians. On the contrary. It is only that what they know is by definition a temporary necessity."

— Doris Lessing, 1986

Controlled Chaos: A Day Working the Rikers Island Book Cart

Jamie Niehof, Intern, Correctional Services Program — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 06:59:21 -0400

Another day of volunteering at Rikers Island with the NYPL has come to a close. Thursday I went to one of the male detention houses along with my mentor and two other staff members from NYPL. We were there for "book cart service," which is a little different than what I remember from Shawshank Redemption.

We delivered books to both solitary confinement and two different "houses," which are the names of blocks within the building. The inmates in solitary confinement are allowed to request books off a list, so we filled these requests from the "library" within this particular building, which was really just two tall shelves of paperback books in the back of the Chaplain's office.

We felt like Indiana Jones capturing the golden statue when we found a book one of the prisoners had requested. Usually the titles were listed on their slips of paper as Cold Moon. That's it. No author, just words. If we couldn't find one of the prisoner's specific books (they can request three and we try to find one of them) we will substitute something simliar, same author, plot, etc. Two prisoners had requested Che Guevara's Guerilla Warfare, so as a substitue I found The Motorcycle Diaries, complete with a picture of Gael Garcia Bernal on the cover.

All the books were piled up on a rolling cart that we first took to solitary confinement. Solitary is also known as the "Bing," although no one we talked to knew exactly how it got that name. Along with an armed guard we delivered the requested books, one magazine, and some free newspapers from the city to each of the solitary cells. Most of the men were sleeping, a few said thank you, and it was altogether less dramatic than I thought it was going to be. The prisoner who requested Guerilla Warfare though, was less than happy with his substitution, and refused to take it. Perhaps Gael Garcia Bernal's teen idol good looks were not the image of rugged rebel resistance he'd had in mind. After our insistence that it was the same person and a reminder that we wouldn't be back for two weeks he decided to take the book, although I'm not entirely sure he's going to read it.

After the Bing, we took our cart to Houses 4 and 6. One thing that was very evident as we walked down the hallway was that the library service was well-liked, well-used, and in-demand. Most of the prisoners who walked by us (in between a red line painted on the floor and the wall) asked if they could have a book, or if we were coming to their house or not. Sometimes the decision to provide book service to a house is dependent on whether or not they have the desire to return books, but more often it is because there are over ten thousand prisoners on Rikers Island and one single Correctional Services Librarian. That's a pretty large patron base.

Getting books back from the prisoners and letting them pick out new ones is a bit of controlled chaos. We stood outside the iron door to the house with our cart and had two prisoners come out at one time, check off their returned book, and pick out a new one. Each prisoner is allowed one book and one magazine. The most popular books are by far James Patterson's novels, so popular in fact that we have to lock them up after book service because they tend to disappear. I wonder if James Patterson has any idea. National Geographic is the magazine of choice, and there is an entire box of them to choose from, some as far back as the early 80's. Urban magazines and books were in high demand, with almost no supply.

Everything is done by hand. The prisoners hand me their picture ID and I copy down their number along with the title of book they chose. Later this will be printed up by one of the NYPL staff members and checked off as books are returned. With zero Pattersons left on our cart and four houses served, we brought the book cart back to the Chaplain's office, unloaded, locked the books up, and checked out of the facility before roll call.

One more day on Rikers Island left.

Books Behind Bars

Jamie Niehof, Intern, Correctional Services Program — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:21:29 -0400

I spent the first week of March working with the Correctional Services Librarian at the New York Public Library. It was part of an internship through the University of Michigan's School of Information designed to be carried out during our alternative spring break week.

Some of my time was spent answering letters from inmates from Correctional Facilities at various locations throughout New York State. Most of the inmate letters are fascinating. The penmanship is painstakingly neat, and the language formal but completely lacking in grammar skills. From one inmate:

"I am do to be release in the couple of weeks. And I'am in desperate need of the Connection book, because I'am in need of programs that would assist me back into society..."

These letters are hard evidence of the need for a program like the Correctional Services one here. Most of the letters are requesting the Connections 2010 book published by NYPL which is "a guide for formerly incarcerated people to information sources in NYC," and includes information on housing, education, financial assistance, finding employment, and other city services.

My second day was spent at Rikers Island, NYC's main jail complex which at any given time houses 13,000-18,000 inmates. Along with my mentor and two other volunteers we helped organize the school library in the female house, Rose M. Singer Center. Women aged 16-21 use the library in conjunction with the high school within the jail. It was our job to organize the books into subjects including Class Sets, Plays/Classics, General Fiction, Urban Fiction, Biography, Spanish, Nonfiction, and Skills. Shelving space is at a premium, and there is a dire need for new books that will be more relevant to the women.

Tomorrow I will again travel to Rikers (subway to Queens, bus to Rikers, lots of checkpoints and gates, then bus to the individual facility), this time to push the book cart in the men's house. Details to come.

Correctional Services: Libraries on the Island

Sarah Ball, Supervising Librarian, Correctional Services — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:40:30 -0400

For twenty years, New York Public Library's Correctional Services program has provided books to the inmates of Rikers Island jail and provided reference services by mail to inmates throughout the state.

Located outside of Queens across from Laguardia airport, Rikers Island jail is vast complex of housing units and facilities that holds around 13,000 inmates at a time. Its scale can be seen on a map but the size of the operation can only be understood through a visit. As an intern with the Correctional Services program, I made my first visit two months ago. Since then, with NYPL staff and other volunteers, I have served a variety of areas and groups on the island: those under mental observation, an adult male facility, solitary confinement or "the bing", and the library within the high school for girls. I am a student of Library Science nearing graduation. Prison library work is a neglected topic in most programs but the classroom would be an insufficient place to learn about the unique environment of a correctional facility. The experience is unparalleled, strange and fulfilling. There are surprises. Like the loud music playing in each of the buses that transport staff and visitors around the island, each bus with its favorite genre. You may get the classic rock bus, the contemporary r&b bus or the soul bus. The blaring music is a welcome wake-up before and after a long morning at book-cart service. Less surprising are the reading habits of the inmates. Vampires and James Patterson are popular on the inside, just like they are everywhere.

The thing I have found to be most striking is the distance between the inmate services and those in the rest of the public library. Though the bulk of the work happens on a locked down island, there are ways to anchor the services to the family of NYPL staff members, patrons and friends. The scope of public library services is larger than many might guess and because of that, there are great possibilities for involvement. If you would like to get involved, our priority at the moment is book donation. We are looking for the following items: Urban Lit (Triple Crown, Urban Books, etc.), Popular fiction (Patterson, Grisham, Rice, Meyer, Rowling, etc.), Sports and Music Biographies, Conspiracy Theory non-fiction, African-American History, Small Business and Investment, GED study guides, and Paperback Dictionaries. Paperback is always preferred.

To donate, please send an email to the Correctional Services Librarian, Nicholas Higgins at nicholas_higgins@nypl.org with your name and the size of your donation before sending books to the Mid-Manhattan branch at 455 Fifth Avenue, NY 10016.