Ok, not an easy questions to answer as every state and in some cases every institution is slightly different.  However, for me it was a matter of getting really bored at my old job and needing a change of pace.  Working in a large public libary in Riverside California I found I need more of a challenge and I needed something that would give me enough of a varity to keep from getting bored.  So surfing the PNLA website for job listings I found the listing for the prison library system here in Washington.  After reading the qualifications and deciding that maybe I do qualify I completed the application process.  Waiting several months and not really expecting to hear anything I got a call to set up a phone interview.  The phone interview was great, I felt comfortable sitting at home with with my cats in my lap and answering questions.  Then I got the call for an in person interview and I was thrilled, I flew up to Washington and spent a couple of days in Walla Walla.  The biggest surprise for me was not the prison itself, but the landscape surrounding the town.  Walla Walla is not the evergreen landscape I expected of Washington State, it actually looked very similiar to the high desert area of California, I felt like I was home.  Then the nerves set in, the actual interview.

The interview was set for the next morning and I was not really sure what to expect.  What would it look like? Where there going to be inmates around? Would I be searched? and any number of other questions started running though my head.  Then I got there and found a stereotypical prison, high stone walls, towers with men on the catwalk with guns, barbed wire across the tops of the fence, and a gatehouse controled by a guy in uniform.  I walked through several sliding doors that were controled by the officer in different booths and I walked through a metal detector, but no strip searches thank you very much. 

Walking though the different areas to the library I found more stone walls and everything seemed really quiet.  I didn’t see any movement except for a few staff members.  Once I arrived at the library I found a small room with some computers and the walls were covered in books.  The place was not really polished, but it was well maintained and the books were neat on their shelves and everything seemed to be organized (it wasn’t until I was hired and working that I found the stuff behind the cupboard doors).  The morning was spent answering the usual questions, along with a few unusual ones, such as the Prisoners right to read.  However, I felt it went pretty well.  After getting questions asked and gettings some of my own answered I was taken to a nice little cafe in town for lunch.  This was a little akward, as I was sitting down to lunch with 3 other people that I had only met a few hours before, but it went a lot better then I expected it to.

After lunch we went back to the library and this is where the fun began.  In order to see how I would react to all the inmates and to get an idea of how it all worked the library was open in the afternoon and I was able to observe.  I now got to watch a room full of inmates mill around the library , find books, get questions answered and even got winked at.  Everyone wanted to know who I was, the workers had comments and questions.  All in all a good couple of hours.

So months went by and I finally had given up on getting the job, but then I got the good news, I was hired if I was still interested in the job.  I decided that yes I was and now I have been working for 3 1/2 years.  All the years have not been easy and even after the first year I was ready to leave, but that is another story.

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