The Brains Behind Jails Service!

Who fills all those requests, keeping her trained eye on the stacks, on the loading dock, on donations, on discards? The Brains Behind the Jails Service rarely gets to see the happy faces of those who receive items she has filled by request. Her longevity with the Jails Service attests to her own job satisfaction and an obvious desire to challenge inmates to think clearly about their futures.

Since we must constantly remind inmates that we fill only educational and books-in-series requests, we find out a lot about our readers' intellectual quests and educational levels. We convey this knowledge back to the office and discuss our readers' needs and determine what we can realistically provide!

Library colleagues and patrons might be surprised to learn how enterprising and practical inmates are. Favorite subjects are small-business start-up material, computer literacy and spelling books, current events and politics, as well as every classic fiction or social science text imaginable. We should not forget to mention the wildly popular, "How to write Love Poems and Love Letters," or Disney drawing patterns!

We transport all these to "The Brains Behind the Operation" at the office, keeping our eyes peeled all the while for material we know will fly off the bookcart into eager hands.