Building an Empowerment Library for Incarcerated Individuals

***BEFORE YOU REGISTER FOR THIS WEBINAR PLEASE REVIEW IMPORTANT REGISTRATION INFORMATION BELOW***

In 2023, Queen Anne’s County (MD) Library received an LSTA grant which provided funds to create an empowerment library for the county’s detention center. Over the course of the twelve-month grant cycle, library staff worked in tangent with the head of the detention center’s library to build a collection that reflected the needs and interests of the incarcerated individuals. The project was also used to share information on library services available to the incarcerated individuals upon their reentry into the community. In this webinar, learn how the relationship between the two organizations was developed, how funding was secured, and how the collection was built to reflect the needs of the incarcerated individuals. The result shows how a dedicated staff with minimum funds could make a big difference in the lives of the incarcerated individuals. 

Learning Outcomes

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• State the importance of offering library services to incarcerated individuals in their community;
• Identify reasons why building a good working relationship with a local detention center can benefit an underserved population of their community; and
• Develop strategies for information sharing and for building a collection that reflects the needs of the incarcerated individuals.

Who Should Attend

This webinar is intended for all public library staff.

Panelists

Nanna Bailey (she/her) is a public services associate at the Queen Anne’s County Library in Maryland. She has a Master’s Degree in English Business Communication and European Studies from Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Nanna has workedat the library for four years in many different areas of library work, including on the grant funded empowerment library project. She is a member of the Maryland Library Association’s Emerging Adult Interest Group. Nanna grew up in Denmark, but after studying in Ireland and meeting her American husband, she ended up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore which has been her home for the last fifteen years. In her free time, she enjoys listening to audiobooks and spending time with her husband, two children, and small dog.

Kristin Green (she/her) is the technical services manager for the Queen Anne’s County Library in Maryland. She has a Master’s Degree in Library Science with a concentration in Archives Management from Simmons College in Boston, MA. For nearly eighteen years, Kristin has worked as a librarian at the Queen Anne’s County Library, covering a broad range of tasks from collection development, programming, cataloging, and helping to serve the public. One of her most fulfilling library career experiences was to manage the collection development portion of the grant funded empowerment library project. When not making book selections, Kristin can be found spending time with her husband and two children, sewing historical clothing, and singing.

Important Registration Information

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Accommodations

This live webinar will be captioned in English (United States). Zoom desktop client or mobile app is required to access captions.

Attendees using screen readers are advised to turn off speech prior to joining the Zoom event because PLA webinars make extensive use of chat functionality. Attendees who find chat distracting may wish to disable it in the Zoom event, as PLA moderators will verbally highlight important topics raised in chat and chat transcripts will be provided post-webinar.

If you have a physical or communication need that may affect your participation in this webinar, please contact us at plawebinars@ala.org or 800-545-2433 ext. 5PLA (5752) at least two weeks prior to the webinar. Without prior notification of need, we may not be able to provide appropriate accommodations for the live event.

Archived Recording

If you're unable to attend this live webinar, an archived recording will be available to all registrants typically within 1–3 business of the live event. Access to closed captions will be provided in the webinar recording.

Tech Requirements

This webinar will be presented using the Zoom platform. Please review Zoom technical requirements and support information, and test your connection.

Once you've joined the webinar, there are two ways to connect your audio: via computer (VoIP) or via telephone. No microphone is required. PLA works with its webinar platform provider to assure the highest quality audio is being delivered to attendees. However, variables over which PLA has no control—such as the speed of your Internet connection or traffic on your local network—can affect the end quality of the webinar audio delivered by your computer. Each webinar’s audio is also available by telephone via a toll number, so we recommend you have access to a long-distance enabled phone as a backup in case you experience audio issues with VoIP. If you do encounter any problems during the webinar, you will receive a link to its archived recording within a week of the live event and can review anything you missed.

Contact

This webinar is presented by the Public Library Association (PLA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).

Questions about this webinar? Please contact us at plawebinars@ala.org or 800-545-2433 ext. 5PLA (5752).