ILS Retreat

Each year staff of Institutional Library Service of the Washington State Library meet to discuss strategy, share experiences, and learn from each other.  As budgets have been slashed, co-workers and friends have been lost, but the connection to each other has not.   Our most recent meeting the first week of June was a time of sorrow and celebration.  As we looked around we thought of the people who were missing, but we also had cause for celebration Milestone birthdays for several of the team included ages 25, 35, 60, and 65 to reveal a group of people who may vary in age, but who share a passion for their work in the institution branches.

Western State Hospital, the home of Dear Dewey!

  Kathleen has found a way to reach her library patrons with this great little newsletter, so check it out.  The second volume of Dear Dewey is now available for your viewing pleasure.

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/

Library Snapshot day was a huge success for those of us who deal with the inmates and patients of Washington prisons and psychiatric hospitals; we see results everyday.  However, it is nice when the general public gets a chance to see what we do every day as we walk into the different facilites of Washington State.  This article in the Franklin County Graphic tells the story of the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center. Click on the newspaper clip for full article.

Jeannie Remillard helps some patrons at the library.

All in all a very successful day! I feel like it was a day that promoted our library in a very positive way to everyone here at Stafford Creek.  I think business has really picked up since that day…we are busier than ever…but that’s ok!! I love my job…and enjoy coming to work each and every day!!

Other comments heard throughout the day:

• A fun place to come
• And…our dogs are more than welcome here
• Library staff are always willing to help in anyway they can
• We love the ILL program…and the books get to us so quickly

Canine patrons check out the latest issue of BARK.

Stafford Creek Corrections Center has long welcomed the dogs from “Freedom Tails” dog program into the library, but never more so than on Library Snapshot Day 1/11/11.

Many of the dog handlers are regular library patrons and they made a point to visit the library and were very happy to get their pictures taken. It went so well that they made it into the local newspaper of Aberdeen, The Daily World.

Click on picture for full article.

Clallam Bay Corrections Center Library participated in Library Snap Shot Day along with all the other institutional libraries in Washington State.  Now they share the headlines with elk in the Forks Forum 1/2011 v.17: no.1.

ILS will be having its very own Snap Shot Day tomorrow!!!! We will be taking pictures, collecting stories, and telling you all about it.  Check back soon to find out what it is like in the prison and psychiatric hospital libraries of Washington.

We now have two Facebook pages where we will be sharing information about Institutional Libraries.  The first one is our primary page for Washington State Library Institutional Library Services.

Our second Facebook page is specifically for the Institutional Library Services “Library Snapshot Day“, which will occur on January 11, 2011.

Please check back on both pages to get the latest information about Institutional Library Services in Washington State.

With support from the American Library Association (ALA), Library Snapshot day is a national phenomenon that has quickly spread across the US.

Library Snapshot Day provides a way for libraries of all types across a state, region, system or community to show what happens in a single day in their libraries. How many books are checked out? How many people receive help finding a job? Doing their homework? This initiative provides an easy means to collect statistics, photos and stories that will enable library advocates to prove the value of their libraries to decision-makers and increase public awareness.

We will be having our very own Library Snapshot Day on 1/11/11 in the prison and psychiatric hospital libraries of Washington State.  On this day we will be taking statistics, collecting photos and stories, and we will be publishing the results online.