IFLA’s Library Service to People in Prisons working group has created a bibliography of articles and resources related to library services to people in prisons that reflects the global context of these services. You can see the newly released bibliography below.
Click to access bibliography_prisonlibraries.pdf
Note: Please see the revised timeline in my chapter on Carceral Histories in the United States.
I’ve created a timeline of library services to incarcerated people beginning with the first library committee on the topic that I could locate (1911) through the creation of ALA’s most recent version of the standards for service to correctional institutions (1992). You can access the work in progress at
Inspired by a very successful Name and Gender Marker Legal Clinic held at San Francisco Public Library, I’ve created a guide for other librarians interested in hosting similar clinics. The guide is available to download at Name and Gender Marker Legal Clinics at the Public Library.
You may have noticed the they/them pronouns module on this site. I created it because so many people seem unfamiliar with the practice of using they/them pronouns, and many of the materials available on pronoun usage assume some level of prior knowledge. I hope that it provides useful, accessible information on they/them pronouns and nonbinary gender identities.
If you’re looking for something in book form – or even comic book form! – I’m happy to recommend the recently released A Quick & Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns by Archie Bongiovanni and Tristan Jimerson.
Here is an interview with the creators on CBR.com.
The book is available from Limerance Press , or you can search for it in your local library through Worldcat. (Not in your library’s collection? You can always suggest it as a purchase. This increases the chance that other people who need this resource will be able to find it!)
The 2018 In the Margins booklist – a list of books of interest to and partially selected by “youth who are marginalized, on the streets, incarcerated, drug-addicted, or struggle with combinations of these issues” – has been announced! The top winners for this year are
Fiction
Beacon House Writers. The Day Tajon Got Shot. 230p. Shout Mouse Press. March 2017. PB $14.80. 9780996927451.
Young black male, white police officer, tough neighborhood, fear, preconceived ideas and alternating perspectives–all the ingredients for another shooting in America. This time, though, the own-voice authors are ten female students who committed two years of their lives to work on the story’s production, in order to make it clear that Black Lives Matter.
Nonfiction
Porinchak, Eve. One Cut. 256 p. Simon Pulse. May 2017. 241p. HC $19.99. PB. $10.99. 9781481481311.
A good kid dies. Or was he murdered? Or is there more to the story than meets the eye? This book pulls from the true story that sent a white suburb into chaos, opening up the possibility that the good kids aren’t all that they seem.
Social Justice / Advocacy
Ross, Richard. Juvie Talk. 271p. MacArthur Foundation. 2017. PB $24.95. 9780985510626.
Life is a play and we are all the characters. The children who have had their lives affected by the juvenile justice system are also “playing parts that have been written for them by society” (R. Ross). Juvie Talk takes the voices of those youth and allows them to tell their stories. But this book goes further–allowing students and teachers to create plays on the book’s website. Unique, creative and inspirational.
See the press release for the awards list on School Library Journal.
See the full list, including nominees, at the In the Margins site.
Jeanie Austin, PhD 