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From “ALA Issues First Revision to Standards for Incarcerated and Detained Individuals in 32 Years,” in Library Journal…

In the past 30 years, access to knowledge has undergone a massive transformation. Libraries have, by and large, kept pace with those shifts—but not in every sector. Despite a growing focus on prison librarianship and outreach in libraries and MLIS programs, there has been a national decline in investments in community health, education, and opportunity, and that has included libraries, notes Tracie D. Hall—distinguished practitioner in residence at the University of Washington Information School, former American Library Association (ALA) executive director, and longtime supporter of library service to incarcerated individuals.

While ALA has provided support to its members who work with prison libraries, particularly through its Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services (ODLOS), the last revision of its Library Standards for Adult Correctional Institutions was issued in 1992, and a standard for detained youth in 1999. Over the past three decades, access to information across much of the world has shifted to digital formats—yet support for services to incarcerated people has not kept pace with those changes.

ALA has recently issued a revised document, Standards for Library Services for the Incarcerated or Detained. It will help support libraries and library staff to meet the literacy, learning, and recreational needs of people held in jails, prisons, detention facilities, juvenile facilities, immigration facilities, prison work camps, and segregated units within any facility, whether public or private, military or civilian, in the United States and its territories. The guidelines also include a history of prison library standards, a definition of the document’s intended audience, the “Prisoners’ Right to Read,” and legal policy contexts.

The new standards were released in September to coincide with Prison Banned Books Week, a time when librarians, educators, journalists, and others raise awareness about the profound destructiveness of censorship in carceral contexts, and advocate for better information access. The updated document reflects the current needs of people who are incarcerated or detained, 95 percent of whom will be released and require information seeking skills to thrive and reestablish a life on the outside. It also takes into consideration concerns that have come to the forefront over the last 32 years: rises in mass incarceration, inequitable incarceration rates for BIPOC individuals, and increases in the numbers of incarcerated women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, undocumented people, and youth. The expanded standards now explicitly speak to the information needs of women, LGBTQIA+ people, the aged, people with dementia, people with disabilities, and foreign nationals.

Read the full article at https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/news/ala-issues-first-revision-to-standards-for-incarcerated-and-detained-individuals-in-32-years.

Many thanks to Victoria Van Hyning, one of the project managers for the Standards, and to Lisa Peet at Library Journal!