Uncategorized – Jeanie Austin, PhD

ALA Annual 2024 Programs on Incarceration and Reentry

I’m looking forward to seeing colleagues and friends at the ALA Annual Conference in San Diego this June! Here’s a list of sessions related to my work (all times Pacific):

Friday, June 28

1 PM: Meeting of the Library Services for the Justice-Involved interest group, with Estelle Yim

Saturday, June 29

9 AM: The PRISM Project: learning about prison library services from people who are or were incarcerated

2:30 PM: The Prison Archives: Addressing the access gap

4 PM: Expanding Library Services to Incarcerated Youth

Sunday, June 30

2:30 PM: How Your Library can Support Users Impacted by Incarceration: Standards Launch

Monday, June 1

9 AM: REFORMA’s Children in Crisis Project – Creating Immigrant Youth and Library Connections

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Podcast Episodes

I’m thrilled to be featured on a few podcast episodes in recent years! You can hear more about my work and library services for incarcerated people on

Social Justice/Advocacy Award!

Library Services and Incarceration: Recognizing Barriers, Strengthening Access is featured in the 2023 In the Margins 2023 Social Justice/Advocacy award list! Many thanks to the In the Margins team!

The Social Justice/Advocacy Award list is available at https://inthemarginssite.blog/2023-social-justice-advocacy/.

The full award lists are available at https://inthemarginssite.blog/awards-list/.

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Recent Juvenile Detention Resources

At one point, there was a proliferation of activity undertaken by librarians working with incarcerated youth, some of which is represented in the Library Services for Youth in Custody website in the Internet Archive, and the continuing In the Margins book award.

While engagement with this area of library service seems to have diminished, there are still great–and recent–materials available to support librarians beginning these services.

Two recent publications I’ve come across are Jess Snow’s Outreach Services for Teens: A Starter Guide (ALA, 2020), which contains example related to beginning and continuing library services in a juvenile detention and Kristin Zeluff’s chapter titled “Collection development policies in juvenile detention center libraries” in Dawkins’ Intellectual Freedom Issues in School Libraries (ABC-CLIO, 2021).

It’s exciting to see that librarians are still thinking deeply about these services!

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Banned Books Week

From PEN America: “Over the course of the past year, PEN America’s Right to Read in American Prisons Project focused on ways prisons and jails across the country restricted access to literature and educational materials through book censorship and state book ban lists. During PEN America’s recognition of Banned Books Week, we are excited to share several essays written by incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and allied people on the crucial role of books in their lives.”

The series is available at https://pen.org/pen_tags/pjw-bbw-2022/.