Prison librarians have long fostered a spirit of collaboration in their field of librarianship. Information is shared and questions are asked by any with an interest in prison libraries. To further this along, Libraries Serving Special Populations Section (LSSPS) of the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies (ASCLA) formed a prison discussion list that has become a welcome forum for information gathering. Over the years, a directory of prison libraries was built and maintained by the library staff of the Maryland prison libraries. With changes in the air and money lost they are no longer able to maintain this directory. 

So in the full spirit of collaboration the Washington State Library Institutional staff has taken on the task. Glennor Shirley, Library Coordinator Correctional Education Libraries of Maryland, said “It is great to see that we can work together as a community and where one system like mine can no longer do the directory, then another takes over.”

The National Prison Library Directory can be found at http://wiki.sos.wa.gov/ils/