2004 Annual Report

In 2004, the Jail Library Student Group continued to provide recreational, educational, and community resource reading materials to inmates located in the Dane County Jail facilities.

2004 at a glance

• 1 move
• 20+ volunteers
• 41 Kids’ Connection participants
• 850+ volunteer hours
• 1493 filled requests for materials

City-County Building

With ten different library volunteers, we filled milk crates with books and magazines that were then distributed to the four wings on a rotating basis. We filled 852 requests, up 53% from 2003. Volunteers worked well over 220 hours.

Public Safety Building

Another four regular volunteers worked over 250 hours during about 120 separate visits to the Public Safety Building (PSB). We rotated book carts between the pods fifty times. We also filled 641 requests, up 30% from 2003. In about 90 additional cases, we attempted to deliver materials but inmates had already left. In about 230 cases, we were unable to find materials to match an inmate’s specific request.

The Memorial Day move was the PSB Library’s biggest news. Due to the jail’s space needs, the library was required to relocate from our windowless "corner office" to a smaller but more visible room. Five volunteers put in about 25 hours over the holiday weekend in a blitz of weeding, packing, and unpacking. The jail staff was especially helpful when the time finally came to move, ensuring that we had boxes, a wheeled pallet, and help installing the shelves in our new space.

Kids’ Connection

Kids’ Connection (KC) promotes family literacy and communication between incarcerated custodial parents and their children by giving inmates the opportunity to record themselves reading a children’s book aloud. KC was also affected by the PSB move. Once located in an office attached to the PSB library, it now shares space with a classroom and the new, smaller library. In 2004, Kids’ Connection recorded 41 sessions with inmates and sent 92 books to children.

Outside the Jails

The work that Jail Library Group does inside the jails represents only part of the time and energy put forth by its volunteers. We spent about as much time outside the facilities as inside on various support activities: soliciting, processing, and delivering donations of materials; bookkeeping, fundraising and shopping for popular items; recruiting and training volunteers; and outreach.

Elsewhere

Kathleen de la Peña McCook, a SLIS alumna, mentioned Jail Library Group in her article "Public libraries and people in jail" in Reference and User Services Quarterly (Fall 2004 v.44 no.1 p. 26-30). JLG’s mission is cited as an illustration of a "kinder philosophical approach to those in jails."

After a volunteer spotted a large piece of machinery with the letters "JLG" emblazoned upon its side, the group was intrigued. We learned that JLG Industries Inc. is "the world’s leading producer of mobile aerial work platforms." When Jail Library Group’s coordinator contacted JLG Industries, they were kind enough to donate several t-shirts, which were used for volunteer appreciation.

Supporters

Our supporters this year included:

• CIMC, College Library, and Dane County Legal Resource Center, donation dropoff sites
• Dane County Library Service
• Friends of the Madison and Middleton Public Libraries
• JLG Industries Inc.
• National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
• Scholastic Books
• South Central Library System
• UW Morgridge Center for Public Service
• UW School of Library and Information Studies, especially SLIS Library staff
• Individual donors

Thank you to everyone who helped Jail Library Student Group reach its goal to provide recreational, educational, and community resource reading materials to inmates at the Dane County Jail facilities. We appreciate your support.