Captain Kirk was spotted at the Jail with his hair-dryer in hand.

Boy, was he Lookin' Good in that butterscotch Tee. Not to mention the Vulcan beauty at his side

Watch out Trekkies, the Captain's gonna shampoo the Crew!

Even the Jails team gets more Star Trek than we can use. But there's always some die-hard fans of the Federation aboard our mother ship.

Our Great Books Program.

(Mortimer Adler fans, beware.)

The Jails Team had a "great books" moment during yesterday's service. It's when we look up toward the sky (or cement ceiling) and close our eyes, amazed by the lollapalooza in front of us. You might see a simple book cart! It might seem like "slim pickins'" compared to a public library, but there is always something "impressive" about the combination of books that wind up on our shelves or are requested by our readers.

A young man asks for Tom Sawyer. His cellmate reads Russian, and turns in Romeo and Juliet, saying it was too difficult. Can we find some Shakespeare in Russian? Another sweeps up all the Jackie Collins he can find. A person wants some fiction about the street and we find a copy of Black Girl Lost. It takes some convincing that Donald Goines will substitute for Iceberg Slim.

Another man is intrigued by a book on the philosophical backgrounds of Black Identity. A person holds Brave New World and wants to know how it compares to Orwell's 1984. Janet Evanovich has several people exclaiming how fun she is to read. Someone chides us for not bringing Stephen Cannell, and says he's been asking and asking. He has very specific tastes and is always trying out new authors, but can never get enough from the "first-come/first-serve" method which obtains at the book cart.

A bilingual reader kneels at the cart with Burro Genio, by Victor Villasenor, in his hands. Then he comes around to my side and quietly asks asks what the Aeneid is about. The little parrot on my shoulder wants to say, "This is a central text to Western Civilization." Is that any kind of recommendation? What IS the book about? It's a great story of honor and loyalty. It's a character-study like a novel but written in beautiful poetry. It's a fantasy of historical and spiritual conflict. I say some mish-mash of the above, nothing to do justice to this poem. Luckily, he decides to take it and give it a try.

Hot to the Touch!

Newark Library ...

has just made our magazine shelves sizzle with a great donation. It's true, the covers may soon be plastered to jail cell walls, (with the possible exception of the Buddha,) but that beats lying face down in your recycling bin!

Our local 1/2 Price book store also keeps us in the good graces of comic book fans at the jail. Check this out:

Cardboard Box Art! 

In the land of latex, creativity comes in surprising forms. The Jails Team found this box during a book delivery. Someone who likes high-speed driving and sports cars tagged this box with some cool designs. 

Service without Guile

Service without guile is as important as service with a smile. "Skillful deceit," as Webster defines it, finds its way into the work-place in a dazzling array of behaviors, some of them functional and some dysfunctional.

This post won't bother separating the useful from the obstructive, the "good" from the "bad." (Guile often seems beneficial on the surface. Efficiency often improves when the restless workers are in conflict with each other, vying for approval and respect within the hierarchy. Colonial power structures maintained control that way and flowered into vast bureaucracies where guile took the place of labor.) Any institution can become this way, where we end up workin' for the man, rather than workin' as the man. The work of pleasing and performing is not the work, itself. Why is dishonest behavior needed in the work-place at all. Who needs it?

Library Patrons do not benefit from guile; they genuinely seek honest, open smiles from employees who offer friendly directions or guidance through the library environment. 

If staff goes outside the library to provide service (as it does to our incarcerated patrons at the jail,) deceptive charm and the judgmental agenda are noticeable a mile away. We are not judge or jury. The inmates "time" was assigned by others. We may want to help, but we are not on a rehabilitative task force. Our job is to create library-patron relationships with our user group, a neutrality promoted by ALA members who serve Special Populations. For incarcerated readers--like anyone else--true help is welcome, while the sharp-toned agents of Self-Improvement are viewed with suspicion.

A few months ago, some guys asked our team if we were missionaries! Was it the starched white shirts and black neckties? 

Say we're just stressed out and feelin' stingy. Even the brittle, stressed-out minds of people bound by a code of conduct (which usually includes high expectations of others,) can disrupt service and antagonize patrons. Library users in jail have heightened sensitivity to punitive attitudes and know when rules are motivated by fair-play or enforced by false pride. The latter generates resistance all around.

The Jails Team must periodically assess their own behaviors and feelings to see if their service is punitive and constrained (to please hidden agenda) or generous and responsive to what the users want. Effective management recognizes guile and does not reward it or foster the confusion by saying, "Change is Good." Effective leaders help troubled teams step forward to honest self-appraisal and authentic adaptation to what is real.

Spring has Sprung 

The grass never grows under our bookcarts.

Here is a typical spread of "Returns" from a day at the Jail. Three houses or cell blocks receive and return books on a given day. 5 carts stuffed top to bottom with paperbacks prove how important it is to have support staff in place "back at the ranch." All people involved are fairly flexible and pitch in to help each other.

Once the books are unloaded, organized on carts and reshelved, the team immediately begins to select and pack books for the next visit. This ebb and flow from the collection (with intensive weeding every time) is routine. Large depletions result in empty shelves, then suddenly we need overflow carts because the shelves are full. 

Both inmates and deputies help us keep the books in motion. Some podworkers even separate damaged paperbacks from those in good condition, making it easier to deal with copious returns. 

We all find ways to keep the springs in working order. 

Send Poems...

about I miss you & I love you.

Gold Country

Never underestimate the value of a used bookstore near the library. Our local Half Price Books has been the motherlode for paperback prospectors on the Jails Staff. 

The great thing about this source is the minds behind the boxes. Store staff is well-trained to spot books of value or interest for the store. After many years of ringing up our purchases, the staff has developed expertise about our collection and is able to select appropriate donations. 

Worth their Weight in....

Such expeditions are worthwhile, as you see from the pictures above. The boxes filled our van to capacity. We now have a rich vein to mine when the gold disappears from shelves inside "The Fort." (These days, our paperback supply is more stable than gold in the U.S. Treasury.)

Storage Area

Our shelf space is limited so we need outside storage. (Let's call this "offshore" area, Dubai, though we're not raking in untaxed billions by keeping our books outdoors!) Paperbacks get damaged if they bake too long under a hot California sun.

Jails Only

Of course, a little sign is required to distinguish our storage area from the general donation area. Ten-ton deposits of musty "Condensed Books" or slick computer manuals don't match our "user needs."

High output librarians, low input funding!

You have to laugh, so as not to weep and wail. 

The jails library service runs on a shoestring, due to incredible public participation via donation and student volunteers who help us process the books. It also has a fairly reliable funding source: the surcharge on commissary items at the jail. As long as people are sentenced to jail, buy items from commissary while they're incarcerated and demand access to books, we're in business. That means the library can pay for some hot new books and the staff to buy, pack, deliver and retrieve them after they are read.

But what about other kinds of library programs? One of the jails team is a grad student in library school and gets to hear the latest buzz from students around the state of California. Funding puddles are drying up. For some reason, libraries are never irrigated in the proper way. They are not guaranteed a flow from the source high in our intellectual mountains. Why is such scarcity the prevailing model in such an incredibly diverse mental landscape? Why does California not commit itself to economic and intellectual growth!

In a posting to a fellow library school student, I wrote:

May the funding roll in!! Part of recovering from the Pete Wilson cutbacks in 1993 was to adopt an "abundance" over "scarcity" philosophy. If citizens start to feel surrounded by riches--not expensive luxuries--but beautiful necessities, the economy will improve. The stingy people will move back into the background where they always live, profiting from doom and gloom. Let the generous, transformative people (like Eleanor Roosevelt)...

 

           take charge.

Life is good in Jail when...

a Deputy convinces an inmate to read Kurt Vonnegut;

some pod workers tell the librarian she's "a bright light" when she arrives with the new books;

a citizen of the county shares his life-time collection of National Geographics (in mo/yr order!) for inmates who love 'em;

British "Bad Girl" actress, Debra Stephenson, does time at our facility for a documentary on incarceration and donates books to the real inmates she had to leave behind;

American stars shine just as brightly when Jada Pinkett Smith sends a donation of magazines!

Life is good when the right book gets into the right person's hands.

This calls for...

Steve and Alice did it again -- filled up our loading dock with bags of marvel-ocious books. So many bags of riches appeared, we called in Hercules -- our Marvel Mystic Superhero -- to sort 'em all out. 

Steve and Alice, both respectable titans of the library world, have helped the Jails Service in countless ways. 

Steve is our bookmobile librarian who regularly distributes books to women at the local federal prison. He also dons the Jails Librarian hat on occasion and takes books to the county jail. His service covers the last 30 years, so he's lugged a ton of books in his day and has the muscles (and bruises) to prove it. This Marvel action figure often wears a beret, adding a certain "joie de livre" to the day's deliveries!

Alice moved on from her stint as Jails Librarian to a neighboring county, where she developed a network of donors who fill bags or boxes over time in their own homes. Alice then collects the bags from these donors and brings them our way. She also attends booksales and gathers paperbacks on behalf of our inmates. Besides her own audacity to scare up such a wide range of books, her car also deserves superhero status. It rides so low to the ground, it barely clears the bumps as donation day approaches!  

Hercules is on call for all future deliveries.

photo courtesy of Mystic Comics #3 (June 1940). Retrieved on February 8, 2009 from http://www.geocities.com/jjnevins/hercules.html

What's she doing in there?

She's reading! Fifteen to twenty percent of the inmates served by Jails Library Service are women. An additional program, operated by Extension Services, serves women at the Federal Correctional Institute. The reading needs of women are unique, though they overlap with men's interests in most areas. Special attention is required in book selection and the staff has great fun meeting their needs.

The wider community needs to hear how much their efforts are appreciated by women in jail. The "Jails Team" gets to see the smiles and watch people crowd around when book cart arrives. Librarians get to hear the hilarious reviews of books, "I was so bored I had to read Jackie Collins!" and field interesting questions about science, history and biography. But the Jails Staff never forgets that our team includes all the Branch Library staffs, Friends Groups, Teen volunteers and generous patrons who donate material "to the cause." This extended family is especially important in the library service to women.

Magazines are essential components of this service. High fashion from Cosmo to Vogue, Seventeen, Ebony and Jet, Vanidades, Latina, People and National Geographic in English or Spanish, Vibe and Rolling Stone, Smithsonian and Discover, Bon Appetit and all the special topics covered by periodicals provide a great source of entertainment and information in the jail.

Perfume samples are an added perk we provide on occasion to the women in county jails. These have been meticulously culled from the magazines by our sneezing, sniffling posse of student volunteers. We pity the poor kids who have to smell this stuff! The bundles are nearly asphyxiating in the closed container of the jails van, but the buzz of excitement when they are handed out to the women makes the perfumery worthwhile. (We often bring Suskind's dark novel, Perfume, to show just how far "scent" can travel!)

Magazine recycling takes a strange twist at the jail. The women give origami a run for its money with the art form of "folded paper brooms." Small squares are joined together to form long sticks and sweepers. These brooms are used to sweep out cells and under bunks. The practice is not viewed fondly by the Jail Staff, who prefer to keep paper OUT of the living areas, and are wary of "weapon-making." However, the brooms are intricate and the library staff is always impressed by the inmates' ingenuity.

A group of women recently spoke with the staff while we restocked their book carts. These readers rekindled our staff's desire to maintain excellent service and work harder on book selection. While blushing romances and cutesie mysteries are popular (and plentiful in donations,) women continue to demand a full range of fiction and non-fiction. In fiction, they share the men's preference for Evanovich, Teri Woods, Sheldon, Collins, Zane, and Iyanla Vanzant. They like Patterson and Deaver, and it's a toss-up between J.R. Ward and J.K. Rowling! (Stephenie Meyer's Twilight hasn't really taken off.) Real life stories of adversity and humor are always welcome, from Sister Souljah to Sherman Alexie and Luis Rodriguez. Lesbian authors speak with courage and humor, or address the anger which many female inmates feel. In other words, incarcerated women want fantasy and reality mixed with intelligence and wit.

These "hot" stories, even the wild rides of Urban Fiction, engage a person's interest and often spark curiosity about other topics. People with long jail terms often develop a passion for non-fiction topics and challenge the librarians to bring more variety of history, science, poetry and biography.

The bleak and boring time between visiting hours or meals, job duties or pill call, are often made less depressing by library books. Besides the comments of inmates, Deputies and Technicians remark how reading material improves morale. One Sheriff hollered across the yard that inmates need more books now that they have more "pod time" (pod=common areas outside their cells.) Not only do books and magazines break the monotony felt by individuals; they spark many conversations and discussions between inmates!

Library service to incarcerated women is also important because it reconnects them to children, spouses, partners and parents outside jail. Reading for Life, a separate library program, administers the successful "Start with a Story" program, where volunteers both read stories and give away children's books to young people during visiting hours. The entire Sheriff's staff has been enthusiastic about this program, which complements other Inmate Service programs about parenting, job-preparedness, drug-counseling and GED. Jails Library Service supports these programs at every turn.

The library staff wants to thank friends behind the scenes who lift all those bags of magazines and books in and out of their cars, entrusting their donations to the local library, placing their beloved books in other people's hands. Donations make up the bulk of our collection and fill every cart at the jail. Women come running to the door and smiling when the librarians arrive--always grateful to their friends "on the outside."

Greatest Book Ever!

Your Jail Librarians made a spectacular find today. The library bin turned out to contain--hold onto your keyboard--The Mammoth Book of Maneaters. This book recounts true stories and cautionary tales about man-eating animals. 

Can you imagine the chills and thrills of sitting in a jail cell, perhaps leaning against a cold stone wall, reading over 250 stories about "creatures that prey on human flesh?" 

As you will see in the picture, the staff had to display Maneaters in a place of prominence. Prominence on a jail bookcart means proximity to James Patterson, Stuart Woods, Walter Mosley and Mario Puzo. Even a Sicilian can get on the wrong side of the snake family or get double-crossed by a crocodile.

(BTW, beloved Book Donaters, this is just the kind of book we like to find tucked in your paper bags. Any other author pictured here will help us out, as well. The goal is to give our readers hours of shivering pleasure.)

Jail, not Yale!

Today, the library team had a request from a young man in an isolation cell. His voice, muffled by the heavy metal door, said he needed "intellectual stimulation." Our view through the narrow slit of a window confirmed that fact--there was nothing to look at or occupy his time.

Earlier in the week, a worker in one of the cell blocks shouted from a recreation yard, "Hey, Librarian. I loved those poetry books you gave me, especially the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson." We had overheard him quoting a Carl Sandburg poem from memory to a fellow inmate. How often do you hear "City of Wide Shoulders" recited on the street or in the classroom?

Another person has written a novel and wanted grammar, punctuation and spelling books to check his work. Other GED students request books that show their desire to excel to a higher level.

As our team proceeded down the long "Get Smart" hallways of the jail, we passed one of our favorite deputies who quipped, "This is Jail, not Yale."

We're not so sure about that!

Eat your heart out, Mom!



Don't gripe, Grim Reapers, but the young magician with the "dark mark" has you beat. An inmate at our city jail wanted to show us his love for Rowling's books, so he rolled up his sleeve and showed us his Harry Potter tattoo, spectacles and all! It looked like this picture:

The days of blue roses and plump red hearts may never go away, but the teenage trickster is now peeking from pecs around America. Since EVERYONE--in or out of jail--is being branded, a wider range of images will be used. Therefore, a Potter tattoo should come as no surprise. Voldemort may seem a little more in keeping with the biker crowd, but you never know. The muggle-born maven, Hermione, may soon appear in the most unusual places. Pip-pip, cheerio!!

S-w-e-e-e-e-t!

The Alameda County Library fleet ...

announces the arrival of a sleek new Dodge Caravan. Rear Seats were removed to accommodate our weekly deliveries of goodies to the jail. A cage was inserted to protect the heads of the illustrious jail staff from flying bins (or from the kind of unruly passengers known to cops and soccer moms.)

The van drives like a dream, has--finally, Mira!--a built-in CD Player, and holds our aching backs snugly in place as we return home from a hard day's hauling. Only by way of contrast, did we realize how jarring it was to drive back from the jail in our old van. This one is so relaxing it puts the Jails Librarian into an alpha state. If the offgassing from the new plastic doesn't kill us, we'll be in fine shape for years to come.  

The bed is a bit smaller so some of our hauls might have to be smaller. This will only affect a few runs to pick up donations and perhaps cause us to be more selective and efficient. The gas mileage is better and the van can use alternative fuel when necessary. This will save our legs a lot of wear and tear, for all you Flintstones' fans.

So all you taxpayers, thanks for the new wheels!!!!! Our bodies and minds are eternally grateful.

Dan's 2-cents: a real treat.

Remembering Emma Lazarus

Uptown Klezmer's Ashnelerando is the perfect music for the election season. Ashnelerando means "double-quick" in Yiddish and Italian. It's a soundtrack for the election schtick that entertains us every four years.

It's music for the magic show that keeps us believing in our country. The magician saws democracy in two--Republican and Democrat--causing the crowd to gasp and choose sides. On November 4th, (s)he will step out from the ballot box MADE WHOLE. Everyone will congratulate the winner, a stunning Republicrat named __________. Wild applause!!!!

Why is a magic trick required to fool us? On a recent cover, Newsweek sells gullible Americans the lie that we are a nation of conservative war-mongers, so any leader must govern from center-right because only this constituency "pays the bills" and determines the winners. Happily, that means lots of security cameras, detention facilities and "faith" based fortresses at home and abroad. If Fortress America weren't so profitable they might call us what we truly are:

"huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Emma Lazarus knew who we were: an immigrant nation who knew how it felt to be "homeless and tempest-tost." Here's where our readers incarcerated in the County Jails of this country and those who serve them come into the picture.

Like every other huddled citizen, we shout the words of Emma Lazarus. "Keep ancient lands, your STORIED POMP." We remain vulnerable and in need of real governance, not the tactic of slapping people down, favored by some in our government. Michael Ledeen, a Bush adminstration official, learned this as a student of Italian Fascism. And we listen to him, not Emma Lazarus?

What makes inmates vulnerable, you might ask? The same things that place us all at risk: an unresponsive job market with over-priced CEO's and wages few can live on; a lack of broad public work programs or a comprehensive safety-net combining public health, rehab, education and welfare; a judgmental society where religion exploits vulnerabilities instead of reaching out to humbly acknowledge our shared goals and needs. 

Abram Maslow's hierarchy of needs applies all the way from the bottom where vulnerable people get stuck in their daily struggles to the top where self-made men and women preach about "success." Emma's heirs understand that people are not just huddled victims, they are huddled people with ambitions and dreams. BAIL OUT the American Dream. Fund social renewal, rather than fiscal removal.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0610/heart_russell.jpg

Book Cart, we love you!!!

Love is in the stars :-) This exclamation was shouted across the yard at us as we delivered books today. The inmate had just come out of a Minimum House. We hope his 320 "cellies" felt the love, too.

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.

All Points Bulletin: Missing Jails Van!

Imagine having to go on safari to find a 1995 Chevy Safari! That's just what happened at our County Repair facilities the other day. No one could find our broken-down van.

Returning from a day at the Jail, our trusty vehicle broke down on a busy section of the highway. We were instantly whisked to safety by the CHP Towing Service. Then the fun began. The County contracts out its towing service to a trustworthy company, with agents in many states. Press 6 for our county in California, Press 7 for Iowa.

In time, a truck showed up to tow the van to a County Repair shop. After the driver attached the wheels and hopped in the cab with me, we started toward the Library--where I was to be dropped off.

An incident from my father's life popped into mind. Never one to sit silent in a cab with a total stranger, I related the story. During WW2, dad was a flight instructor in the Army Air Corps. He was dispatched from Mississippi to Kentucky with a glider in tow. At some point over Kentucky the glider floated free from the plane and they arrived at the airfield without it. With a chuckle, I recounted this incident to the tow-truck driver. I was sure all his tow-ees had arrived safely at their repair stations.

Little did I know how prophetic my anecdote would be. The tow truck arrived at one of the three repair facilities at 6:00, several hours after closing. (So the driver had no place to leave the van.) Did he take it to another yard with a later quittin' time? That was a possibility. But no one knew. No one knew where the van was for days. Posses were sent out scouting neighborhoods around the yards to find a lonely Jails Van. No luck!

Two days later, the van was located. The driver had squirreled the 16-foot vehicle away at his facility, presumably where no one could SEE it. Now it's sittin' pretty on it's hydraulic lift, gettin' a new fuel pump or alternator. We HOPE!

Did I mention the County Neurosurgeon had contracted out it's future appointments for Brain Surgery? Call 1-800-where's my head!