NPEP Library
The NPEP Library at Northwestern University Libraries supports the educational mission and activities of the Northwestern Prison Education Project (NPEP) by enabling access to research materials and consultations with librarians, strengthening our collections in social justice, creating and providing informational literacy resources, extending our suite of services to incarcerated students, and applying the ethics of librarianship to advocate for alternatives to policing, surveillance, and incarceration.
Research Requests
We provide research and reference support for NPEP students via correspondence and in-person consultations, enabling access to library resources such as scholarly books and articles, encyclopedia entries, poetry and artwork, case law, news stories, websites, and much more. This work is mostly facilitated through student access to our research request form which anyone is free to download and adapt.
Research Club
We provide a monthly learning space where NPEP students explore, share, and learn research skills in collaboration with Northwestern University Libraries. Through discussion, hands-on activities, research presentations, and more, students are introduced to and strengthen their skills in scholarly research, information and digital literacy, library sciences, and critical and ethical research practices.
Research Library
We provide a curated and cataloged research library to NPEP students at Sheridan Correctional Center, with books relevant to a successful educational experience, including works on how to perform scholarly research, information literacy, reference and scholarship, writing and speaking, and other relevant research and scholarly resources. In addition, the library includes books that support NPEP’s Wellness and Restorative Justice initiatives, including reentry resources.
Social Justice Fund
We provide the selection of and access to publications and special collections dedicated to social justice relevant across all disciplines, the voices of the currently and formerly incarcerated, research on policing and prisons, and new and future works on restorative, transformative, and community-based approaches to safety and justice.
Prison Library Resources
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Abolitionist Library AssociationA collective of library workers, students, and community members taking action to divest from all forms of policing in libraries and invest in our collective liberation. We envision a world without policing or prisons. Our goal is to create libraries that are rooted in community self-determination and intellectual freedom through collective action.
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ALA Standards for Library Services for the Incarcerated or DetainedThe Standards for Library Services for the Incarcerated or Detained serve as a roadmap toward providing a higher level of free services, programs, and materials provision in carceral facilities. They provide a framework for assessing each facility’s current level of services to users, and a way to identify gaps between services and the Standards. Where there are gaps between current practice and the Standards, there are guidelines for future development.
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Expanding Information Access for Incarcerated People InitiativeExpanding Information Access for Incarcerated People is based in SFPL’s Jail and Reentry Services program. In coordination with the American Library Association (ALA), this project will identify existing library services for incarcerated people, support professionals in the field in building out or creating new services, solidify library services to incarcerated people as a focused area of concern within librarianship, develop digital literacy programming for people who are formerly incarcerated, and provide guidance for librarians working in juvenile detention centers, jails, and prisons nationwide.
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IFLA Guidelines for Library Services to Prisoners (4th Edition)This fourth edition of the IFLA Guidelines for Library Services to Prisoners provides a tool for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of library services to prisoners in all kinds of places of incarceration, including adult and juvenile prisons, detention centres, and jails. It serves as a model guide for the development of national guidelines for prison libraries and can be adapted to reflect local circumstances and needs.
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Prison Library Support NetworkAn information-based collective founded in 2016 to support incarcerated people by organizing networks for sharing resources and building community around prison abolition in libraries, archives, and other knowledge-based institutions.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the many library workers across the profession who have been doing and continue to grow this work. We would especially like to thank Dr. Jeanie Austin, whose work and writing in this area has been foundational and inspirational; our colleagues at Jackson College Library, whose support for the Jackson College Corrections Education Program deeply informed many of our services; and the NPEP Graduate Student Advisory Committee for all of their support in helping to get this project off the ground.
