I recently did a post on the loss of the “Spokesman Review”, however, I am happy to report that we still have many newspapers in the library to provide a touch of home for our patrons. As newspapers can be very expensive we cannot purchase all of them that are published in Washington, but we do our best. To that end we carry the larger metropolitan areas (excluding Spokane). This includes Olympia, Seattle, Yakima, Tri-Cities, Everett, Tacoma, Wenatchee, Vancouver, and usually the local paper for the area the prison is located.

All of these cities are still mailing out their newspapers and I hope they continue. If they don’t, the inmates will lose one of the few touches of home that is still available to them. Newspapers not only provide news of their local areas, but also a connection to a community. This connection can provide listings for jobs and housing which is important for the inmates releasing back into society, but it also provides the stories that make it a community.

Since local news is not the only interest of our patrons, we also carry newspapers that appeal to different cultures and lifestyles. To meet these needs we carry El Mundo, La Opinión, Smoke Signals, Indian Country Today, and Seattle Gay News.

The wave of the future may be the Internet, but here’s to hoping that some things remain in print.