Author: Libby Molina
In the summer of 2015 I moved to New York from San Francisco after having an epiphany: I could combine my lifelong love of books with my passion for teaching and become a school librarian! Over the course of the my first year at Pratt, I was the librarian/tech assistant at P.S. 6, and this year I have been working at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, as the librarian assistant for the lower and middle schools. My favorite things in life are books, art museums, traveling, living abroad, learning new languages, and riding my bike.
This paper will provide an overview of the current state of libraries within jails, prisons, and youth facilities: their policies, the programs they run, and their impact on incarcerated individuals. By examining collection development, patron privacy, prison law libraries, reference services, the school-to-prison pipeline, literacy programs for youth, and technology and information literacy, I hope to show the range and breadth of what prison libraries seek to accomplish.