We work using books donated by local community members & publishers, volunteer labor, and postage money raised at fundraisers and via donations. Our book collection is donated by members of the community. Because we manage to get by in donated space, with donated books, donated packing materials, and volunteer labor, our only expense is postage. To meet this much-needed expense, we hold fundraiser
s and look for other opportunities for receiving funds. We are a group of activists, librarians and archivists, editors, students, office workers, teachers, authors, and other book lovers, and we welcome you to come to a packing session whenever you can make it, for however long you like. Travelers passing through town are more than welcome, too. Members of the Books Through Bars collective have different beliefs about the American prison system. Some of us are abolitionists, and some are pro-prison-reform. But all of us are startled and angered by how difficult it is for people to access decent educational reading material on the inside. We believe literacy and access to reading material is a human right. Our books, we are often told, enjoy wide circulation among those inside. Our recipients tell us that the books we send are cherished and greatly improve their quality of life. Moreover, we strive to connect incarcerated people to radical literature—prisons intentionally preclude access to such resources. Many of the people who write to us request books on indigenous resistance and history, q***r and trans sexuality, feminism, and more.
