2007 Annual Report

In 2007, the Jail Library Student Group celebrated 15 years of providing recreational, educational, and community resource reading materials to inmates located in the Dane County Jail facilities.

The highlight of 2007 was the group’s 15th anniversary celebration. Several speakers commemorated the event, including Louise Robbins, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS); Capt. Jeff Hook, Dane County Sheriff’s Department; student coordinators Angela Milock and Betsy Bromley; and volunteer Nichole Fromm. Light refreshments were served, including a cake that was decorated as a stack of books designed by SLIS student Lexy Spry.

The group also was honored to receive the 2007 Frances de Usabel Outreach Services Award from the Outreach Services Round Table of the Wisconsin Library Association. The award is presented annually to a “library or librarian who has provided exemplary library outreach services to underserved populations.” This was a fitting marker of 15 years of service, as Frances de Usabel was an early advocate and supporter of JLG.

In fall 2007, five JLG volunteers attended the Books to Prisoners Conference in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. There we swapped practical “how we do it” information, shared questions and thoughts about the purpose of such work in light of the bigger picture issue of incarceration in the US, and remembered many moving stories from the individuals we serve.

2007 by the numbers

• 1 anniversary celebration, 1 award, 1 conference
• Over 50 volunteers
• More than 190 Kids’ Connection participants
• Over 300 jail visits
• Over 450 volunteer hours just inside the jails, plus many more hours outside
• 1089 filled requests for materials

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. In 2007, Kids’ Connection recorded over 100 sessions for 171 children of inmates. People could participate at both the Public Safety Building and the Ferris Center.

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 574 requests, down somewhat from 2006. We were unable to fill about 200 requests because the desired books could not be found in time. Volunteers contributed over 150 hours at the CCB.

Public Safety Building

Another eight regular volunteers worked over 200 hours during over 80 separate visits to the Public Safety Building. We rotated book carts between the pods fifty-two times - once a week, every week. We also delivered 515 special requests. In about 200 additional cases, we were unable to find requested books in time.

Outside the Jails

Volunteers spent countless hours on various support activities. We gathered donations from local library book sales, used book stores, and collection bins; prepared donations at monthly “processing parties;” and delivered carload upon carload of boxes to the jails, among other activities.

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 Middleton Public Library
• South Central Library System
• UW School of Library and Information Studies, especially SLIS Library staff
• Sony Corporation
• Kohl Foundation
• 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, and look forward to 15 more years!