Librarian lights way for inmates with books

updated 8:01 a.m. ET Sept. 8, 2008

PINE BLUFF, Ark. — Like any library, the bookshelves overseen by Dennice Alexander draw visitors with diverse literary tastes.

Requests for everything from philosophy books to "The Art of Sculling" reach Alexander's desk, which is filled with lists and yellow cards cataloguing the tomes held at her branch locations. Not that it's likely Alexander's readers will take to a boat anytime soon.

Alexander is the first full-time administrator who oversees the libraries within Arkansas state prison system, which holds more than 14,000 inmates spread among 20 locations.

For the longest time, advisory boards held sway over what books made it inside the double razor-wired fences. But in recent years, Alexander has approved the books and magazines that bring light inside a system once deemed by federal courts to be a "dark and evil world."

"They're trying to rehabilitate themselves," Alexander said. "We have (prisoners) leaving every day and some of them have been in since they were 17, 16, and now they're 35 and 40. The world has changed, so they don't know about Internet or banking."

Some hesitation
For Alexander, her own switch to the prison system didn't come without some hesitation. The 61-year-old never visited a prison before taking the job, after working in the "free world" as a librarian for institutions like the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a private school. The first challenge came from walking past the fence and guard towers.

Prisoners run the day-to-day operations of the individual libraries, pasting on bar codes and organizing the books. Inmates collect the magazines and daily newspapers, either USA Today or the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, skimming through the newsprint to check for any stories that might incite the incarcerated.

The library jobs "are gravy" positions for inmates, Alexander said, meaning prisoners keep things impeccably neat among the stacks. On a surprise visit to one unit, the library administrator couldn't immediately put her hands to a copy of a book on working dogs.

The inmate running the library walked over to the shelf and immediately pulled it out.

"They can go to straight to a book. It's amazing," Alexander said. "They know where every book is in the system."

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