Resources are scarce at most of the nation’s 900-plus prison libraries. State and local library systems—and individual librarians—carve out time and funding from operations budgets to meet significant needs.

“Prison libraries are under-resourced, understaffed, and don’t have materials that reflect the lived realities of incarcerated people,” says Emily Durkin, American Library Association public policy manager. Prisons don’t allow internet access, she adds, and approved electronic devices “rarely offer meaningful access to books and library services in the way that we would like.” The current system, according to Durkin, is not scalable, and additional funding will be essential to develop collections and circulate resources.

Legislation introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives aims to address the problem. The Prison Libraries Act would create one-year grants to “advance reintegration efforts, reduce recidivism, and increase educational opportunities,” per the bill, requiring $10 million in federal spending each year through 2031. The legislation could transform library services for a vulnerable population.

Malcolm Tariq, director of PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program, notes that incarcerated people are often “down to paper, pens, typewriters,” and they pay for “bare-bones digital communications.” Librarians must keep such limits in mind when designing for prisons and transitional spaces.

Tom Auger, a senior librarian at DeKalb (Ga.) County Public Library, teaches digital literacy inside and outside prison. His patrons “may have been in prison for 20 years, so their tech skills need beefing up,” he says. Auger got permission from the Georgia Department of Corrections to present slideshows and later negotiated to bring in a 12-laptop cart for learners. His administrator allocated “a generous amount, $1,000, for the purchase of books on creating business plans and entrepreneurship,” he says.

St. Louis (Mo.) County Library found room in its budget to establish a Justice Services team. Department manager Megan Phifer-Davis says SLCL offers library cards, education in the trades for adults, and a circulating book collection for juvenile detention centers. She also hears demand for downloadable, though expensive, digital content, and looks for “unconventional ways to provide a platform, considering the security and IT issues common in correctional facilities.”

The San Francisco Public Library’s Jail and Reentry Services department is an incubator for accessibility initiatives. JARS supports a cell-to-cell book cart, a partnership with Hoopla for digital content, and a reentry plan in which people use jail IDs to get library cards—programs that sound simple yet are anything but. SFPL's Mellon-funded Expanding Information Access for Incarcerated People project, now in its fifth year, connects like-minded librarians who want to learn more about serving prison systems; it also provides free virtual access to library services for people who are incarcerated or in reentry. This grant supported ALA's revision of its Standards for the Incarcerated and Detained and enabled free access to Chromebooks by justice-impacted people.

Sharing e-book readers is a start, yet there is overwhelming demand for books and media. “People inside are voracious readers,” says SFPL librarian Jeanie Austin. “In California alone, almost 100,000 people are incarcerated, so 30 licensed copies of an e-book don’t do much.” Austin thinks the Prison Libraries Act might incentivize companies to find creative solutions to provide prison populations with e-resources.

Estelle Yim, a 2023–2025 ALA digital literacy fellow who worked with SFPL, says expenditures pay social dividends. “The same tax dollars that fund prisons and jails fund our libraries,” they note, and incarcerated people benefit from education and interaction. “Having materials to access and having people work with them made their experience in prison monumentally better.”

Yim recently shared this expertise with ReConnect CT, a digital education project at the University of Connecticut that assists people reentering society. ReConnect CT is funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, and “it’s awesome that higher ed and policy institutions are converging around this topic,” Yim says.

Austin likewise believes awareness is expanding. Should the Prison Libraries Act pass, they say, librarians have the opportunity “for more free resources to be made available, for people who are incarcerated to be viewed as members of the public, and for the public to think about how this is for the good of all of us.”

This article has been updated.