How is the prison library similar to a school library? How do they differ? When school libraries, and the education system generally, fail students, can prison libraries take up the slack? How can they best provide tools for rehabilitation, education and making time spent in prison somehow purposeful?

These are questions Julia Schneider, who has worked in Canadian and American school and prison libraries wonders about, yet those outside “the system” often don’t. Perhaps they should? Julia currently works at the American School, Ulaaanbaatar but has held previous librarian positions at the Ontario Correctional Institute; California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; and Collins Bay Institution.