LIS 657���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Jonathan Eaker Jail North Site Visit Assessment ����������� At the jail I wasn�t sure what to expect. I thought it might be a library that serves both the inmates and the staff. I thought that a collection for the prison population would mostly be reference books, some for law, and then probably mostly popular fiction. I have no idea how a prison operates so I was thinking there had to be some kind of security present. I also thought a guard probably had to accompany the prisoners at all times. I wondered what kind of interaction the librarian could have with prisoners, if they worked like normal librarians or if they just supplied books with out ever really working with the prisoners. ����������� Margo Fesperman is the librarian at the Jail North. The jail houses 500-600 inmates. It was intended for short term sentences but with the main jail overcrowded it now serves many purposes. It holds the county�s youthful offenders who are criminals aged 16 and 17 years old. The library there serves the entire prison population. There is also a library at the uptown jail that does the same functions and serves a population of 1500 inmates. Beside Margo the library has a paid assistant with all other library functions being done by inmates, but she did mention that they would like some volunteers to help out with various tasks. The inmates that work in the jail are usually federal inmates waiting for trial. They take a 20 hour class on how to be a library assistant. They use InMagic as their cataloging software. ����������� The library offers the services of a small public library and legal reference. Since the prison population varies greatly in reading ability, the collection has books of all levels. They have non-fiction, fiction, young adult, Spanish resources, videos, and books on tape. Poetry, history and biography books are popular. A book cart, which is handled by an inmate, is taken to the pods for the inmates to use. The audio books have proved to be popular. They were first bought as tools for people who couldn�t read well and for teaching Spanish speaking inmates English. Now people of all abilities use the audio books and treat the tape players checked out with them very well. The biggest problem with them is the batteries for the tape players run out and she has to maintain charged batteries for replacement. The inmates get access by making an appointment where they submit the question they want to answer. This is done so they do not waste time just hanging out in the library. When their question is approved they get 2 to 2.5 hours to research it. There is no limit on the number of appointments an inmate can make. Many of the prisoners want to look up information on their cases. The librarian can�t answer their legal questions but can guide them to where they can find the answers. The library has access to Lexis-Nexis and law online databases. The library has no internet access. ����������� Margo reports to the Director of Inmate Programs. She has no real book budget and relies mostly on donations. She does get money from the commissary, the store available for the prisoners, and that pays for the law books.� Areas that don�t get donations do have to be purchased. She has bought young adult, art, and poetry books. Videos are ordered through a library order company. She does patron surveys to see what the inmates would like and what level they read at. The prison offers classes in things like literacy, ESL, substance abuse, high school, GED, and one for reading fathers. The library supplements these classes. Last year she had 352 library appointments and around 500 requests. Margo says the library does not need much promotion because it�s very popular with the prisoners. She does want to promote it more to the Hispanic inmates. Her hours are usually around 7am to 4pm but she works however long she needs to. ����������� I was surprised by how much the Jail North library works like a normal public library. They check out books, help patrons find information, and even survey patrons for their needs. I was also surprised that they let the inmates work in the library. I found it very interesting that the prisoners like the library and respect the library materials. Maybe it�s just my personal bias, but I would have thought inmates would care less about the care of library materials. I also didn�t think the library would be as popular as it seems to be. I can understand how they would want to use the law sources and that some would want to read other books, but it sounds like a decent number of inmates like to read too.