Libraries Divest
About Us
As part of the Abolitionist Library Association, the Library Divestment from Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) Labor Working Group formed in October 2020. The Working Group examines library investment in the PIC, from procurement to vendor contracts to endowment portfolios and works to empower library workers to advocate for PIC divestment within their institutions. We note that reliance on the labor of incarcerated people is becoming pervasive and that, in tandem, there’s an increasing reliance on outside vendors in all aspects of library work, a focus on “efficiencies” above all else, and a proliferation of a scarcity mindset.
We are a gathering space for a community of practice seeking to learn, share, and collaborate, and welcome all GLAM workers interested in working toward PIC divestment and better futures.
Our Goals
To spread awareness and support advocacy related to this issue
To name and examine libraries’ financial ties and financial incentives to continue the project of mass incarceration
To prompt reflection and transparency on how libraries have been complicit in and benefited from prison labor, police violence, and racial capitalism
To push for divestment, to fund things that will advance equity and ways of living that aren't carceral
To contact the group or request to join our email list, please send an email to abladivest@protonmail.com.
A STORY OF A DESK
This story, formed through questions and some answers, will discover how this desk is a product of the prison industrial complex. The story of these questions are designed to help you also come up with pieces for your own story, in your own local context, and take action towards divestment of prison labor - in whatever form that looks like for you.
PIC divest zine
An anonymous zine for library workers interested in getting started with PIC divestment work at their institution.
Resources
Prison Labor & Libraries
"Your Family’s Genealogical Records May Have Been Digitized by a Prisoner" by Shane Bauer, Mother Jones, 2015.
"Public Universities, Prison-Made Furniture" by Lilah Burke, Inside Higher Ed, 2020.
"How to Research Your University Endowment: A Webinar" by Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, YouTube, 2021.
"Digital Libraries and Prison Labor Resources" by Alexis Logsdon
"Evidence of Them: Digitization, Preservation, and Labor" by Maria A. Matienzo, 2018.
Digital Libraries and Prison Labor: A Preliminary Inquiry by Alexis Logsdon, 2019
Companies Using Prison Labor
Survey of Prison Industries by State by Alexis Logsdon
Core PIC Companies List by Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign
The Prison Industry: Mapping Private Sector Players by Worth Rises
Prison Labor & Abolitionist Resources
“Divest & Decarcerate: CUNY’s Ties to Prison Slavery and the Urgency of Mass Clemency” by CUNY for Abolition & Safety, 2021.
Carceral Studies Network, Duke University.
“Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0” by Dan Berger, Garret Felber, Kali Gross, Elizabeth Hinton, and Anyabwile Love, Black Perspectives, 2018.
Get Involved
To contact the group or request to join our email list, please send an email to abladivest@protonmail.com.