NYPL Blogs: Freedom of Thought

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, Intern, Correctional Services Program — 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, Intern, Correctional Services Program — 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, Intern, Correctional Services Program — 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.