Reading behind Bars by Jill Grunenwald

Author:Jill Grunenwald
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510737082
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2019-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

Since Highland’s one visit, I had been slowly, but actively, making a dent in the donated books. Most of my time was really spent just sorting them into two piles: appropriate books and inappropriate books.

Part of my education in becoming a librarian involved many a classroom discussion about why librarians shouldn’t judge the reading choices of their patrons. A professor told us a story about how she was working the reference desk one day and a patron came in requesting literature that was pro-white supremacist. Personally, the professor took issue with that viewpoint. But professionally, she had to put all of that aside: she had a patron standing in front of her and he wanted a book and, as it happened, the library did carry materials that met that patron’s information needs. So, as much as it personally pained her, she got up and took him to where the books were.

Also in grad school, I learned about the Five Laws of Library Science, as outlined by S. R. Ranganathan in 1931. One of these laws—number two, as it were—is “Every Reader His Book.” Every member of a community, Ranganathan argued, should be able to walk into a library and find the material they want. Libraries should exist for all patrons and provide a collection that meets the needs of everyone in that community, not just certain demographics. It’s a great standard for most libraries.

Yeah, so, that’s not a thing behind bars.

Prison libraries have an entirely different set of rules when it comes to access of materials. Freedom of information doesn’t exist in prison. Patron privacy doesn’t exist in prison. Outside, if a patron came to me and asked for, say, a book on bomb making, I would never in a million years dream of reporting that to anyone. Librarians on the outside, when faced with a demand to break confidentiality from law enforcement, have fought back and they have fought back hard by pushing against requests for private information about patrons.

But those real-world freedoms don’t hold in prisons. All books that were deemed unacceptable were identified as such because they posed a security risk to the institution. Like, say, books on bomb making. Anything too sexually or violently graphic was an automatic no-go, the belief being the materials would encourage sexual or violent thoughts and actions in the inmates. So, included in all of my documentation was a list of books that were not allowed inside. The process of books being deemed inappropriate often started in the mail room, when copies would be sent to the men inside, whether from family or an approved vendor. Like all incoming mail, packages were searched. Potentially problematic titles were sent to a committee, which determined whether or not they were allowed inside. If a book was not allowed at one prison in Ohio, it wasn’t allowed at any prison in Ohio. Books stayed on the list for four years and then dropped off; after that, they were allowed inside unless challenged again.

Every day, when an inmate requested a book we didn’t have, I had to check it against the list.

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