Fugitive Libraries

reasonable idea/fraught ideal?

"Public libraries are among the last free, inclusive, 'truly democratic' spaces in American cities and towns. In the fullest version of this reverie, libraries are imagined as civic spaces for ethical recalibration and political reconciliation, where we can talk out differences of opinion and steel our defenses against lies and manipulation."   -Mattern, "Fugitive Libraries"

Key Concepts

• Library as Undercommons or "a place allowing for 'ongoing experiment' with informal ways of learning together, of building futures together " (Moten and Harney). 
• Vocational Awe: According to Ettarh “Vocational awe” refers to the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in beliefs that libraries as institutions are inherently good and sacred, and therefore beyond critique. In this article, I would like to dismantle the idea that librarianship is a sacred calling; thus requiring absolute obedience to a prescribed set of rules and behaviors, regardless of any negative effect on librarians’ own lives.

Key Concepts cnt'd

• Fugitivity:  
  •  Moten as “a desire for and a spirit of escape and transgression of the proper and the proposed. It’s a desire for the outside.”
  • Halberstam defines fugitivity as a mode of being that is other than settled, recognizing that “there are spaces and modalities that exist separate from the logical, the logistical, the housed and the positioned.”​ 
• Fugitive Libraries:  small, informal, mobile collections; free to transgress institutional conventions, operating outside the demands placed on (or imposed by) state-supported and commercial institutions.

Have you ever heard of/had any experience with these fugitive libraries? others?

• The Free Black Women's Library
• The Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind
• Kameelah Janan Rasheed
• Reading Zimbabwe
• Book Bunk 

Title Text

For Consideration

• Thinking about your own experience with libraries thus far, consider the following:
  • What is the role of a library and a librarian in an intolerant and fearful society? ​
  • ​Have librarians been active agents or just passive observers in the ebb and flow of social change and social conscience?”
  • ​​ In what ways do libraries act as “instruments of social control,” and how could they be made into instruments of restoration, reparation, or transformation?

Prison Library Support Network (PLSN)

ABOUT PLSN 

PLSN was established in 2016 by a group of librarians, grad students, and activists in New York City. The collective was founded as an explicitly abolitionist project that aimed to reroute resources from private universities, libraries, and archives. Moreover, it was intended to offer collective support for anyone interested in exploring the best ways of building infrastructures for sharing knowledge resources and institutional access with people who are incarcerated.

PLSN Intiatives

• Reference Letter Writing through Brooklyn Public Library (2017)

• New Lots Telecommunication Room Revamp

• Abolitionist Futures Discussion Groups

• Greenlight Booklist

• Legal Handbook for Trans & Gender Non-Conforming Folks in NYC Jails

Reference By Mail 

Reference by Mail

2021

In March of 2020, public library workers in New York City became locked out of facilities. This ended our access to reference questions and a direct line of communication with people inside about their information needs. Throughout 2020 and 2021, PLSN organizers met repeatedly to reflect on how we can use a moment of crisis as an opportunity to transform our previous reference work into a reference letter service independent of the public libraries/any institutional affiliation. As a result, in October 2021, we launched our fully volunteer-powered Reference Project. We received over 600 research questions in our first six months and more than 1,000 in our first year.

• PLSN’s reference by mail service answers research questions from incarcerated people around the country.

• Between October of 2021 and December of 2024, we responded to 3,878 letters from people who often have no other options for accessing information.

In addition to the values listed below, we approach this work with humility and care.

This reference letter service is an organizing experiment fumbling towards an understanding of how to organize mutual aid projects focused on sharing information resources in solidarity with people inside the abolitionist movement. Anyone who is comfortable working within our stated values below is welcome to join us and play part in shaping this radical work.

How to Write to PLSN:

PLSN is only able to answer letters from those currently incarcerated and that are sent following our PLSN letter writing guidelines. Letters can be mailed to:

PLSN c/o Interference Archive
314 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215

Subtitle

PLSN/RBM Values 

No Cops, No Saviors: Rather than deciding what’s best for people, we believe people know best what they need. We approach reference with the goal of responding to stated needs by offering people the best information possible to do what they feel is in their best interest. Apart from following mail policies from the DOC, we reject the idea of imposing judgments on what is safe to share. We don’t police the content of reference questions or the information needs of those who reach out to us.

Decolonialism + Anti-Racism: We understand part of the explicit and expressed function of libraries is to maintain a system of intellectual property within a larger context of a white supremacist state that depends on colonialization, genocide, ableism, and enslavement. We know that truly realizing the emancipatory potential of the library requires: 

• supporting Indigenous resistance to the settler state and movements for decolonization

• actively fighting anti-Blackness and racism within ourselves, our work, and beyond it

• creating resources for sharing information which are not tied to the carceral or colonial state

• prioritizing collective access in ways that move beyond able-bodied/-minded normativity

Abolition: Our work is rooted in an abolitionist framework which means we believe no one in our society is disposable and the prison industrial complex must be abolished. Abolition represents a commitment to fostering our collective understanding of ending mass incarceration and building a constellation of alternative information resources that exist outside of the carceral state. As abolitionists, we seek out radical possibilities by building connections across our communities based on solidarity and we reject work that expands the reach of the carceral state.

How to Write to PLSN:

PLSN is only able to answer letters from those currently incarcerated and that are sent following our PLSN letter writing guidelines. Letters can be mailed to:

PLSN c/o Interference Archive
314 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215

PLSN/RBM Values 

Accountability and Sustainability: There is a significant power difference between those of us on the outside who are sending letters in and people receiving letters behind bars. This makes it particularly important to structure this service in a way we can maintain, honor our commitments, and regularly communicate what we can offer in an accurate, clear, and consistent way.

• creating resources for sharing information which are not tied to the carceral or colonial state

• prioritizing collective access in ways that move beyond able-bodied/-minded normativity

Abolition: Our work is rooted in an abolitionist framework which means we believe no one in our society is disposable and the prison industrial complex must be abolished. Abolition represents a commitment to fostering our collective understanding of ending mass incarceration and building a constellation of alternative information resources that exist outside of the carceral state. As abolitionists, we seek out radical possibilities by building connections across our communities based on solidarity and we reject work that expands the reach of the carceral state.

How to Write to PLSN:

PLSN is only able to answer letters from those currently incarcerated and that are sent following our PLSN letter writing guidelines. Letters can be mailed to:

PLSN c/o Interference Archive
314 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215

PLSN/RBM Values 

Reciprocal + Personal: Reference establishes a line of communication for those of us outside to understand how to support people inside directly. We, therefore, value the knowledge and intellectual contributions of those on either side of the letter. While our goal in reference exchanges is to share information and not find penpals, we are still transparent and personal about our identities because we believe in the lived relationships and imaginative possibilities emanating from connections built through letter-writing.

PLSN/RBM Values 

Decolonialism + Anti-Racism: We understand part of the explicit and expressed function of libraries is to maintain a system of intellectual property within a larger context of a white supremacist state that depends on colonialization, genocide, ableism, and enslavement. We know that truly realizing the emancipatory potential of the library requires: 

• supporting Indigenous resistance to the settler state and movements for decolonization

• actively fighting anti-Blackness and racism within ourselves, our work, and beyond it

• creating resources for sharing information which are not tied to the carceral or colonial state

• prioritizing collective access in ways that move beyond able-bodied/-minded normativity

How to Write to PLSN:

PLSN is only able to answer letters from those currently incarcerated and that are sent following our PLSN letter writing guidelines. Letters can be mailed to:

PLSN c/o Interference Archive
314 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215

PLSN/RBM Values 

Abolition: Our work is rooted in an abolitionist framework which means we believe no one in our society is disposable and the prison industrial complex must be abolished. Abolition represents a commitment to fostering our collective understanding of ending mass incarceration and building a constellation of alternative information resources that exist outside of the carceral state. As abolitionists, we seek out radical possibilities by building connections across our communities based on solidarity and we reject work that expands the reach of the carceral state.

Questions?

For more infromation visit the PLSN Tumblr

References 

Ettarh, Fobazi. "Vocational awe and librarianship: The lies we tell ourselves." the Library with the Lead Pipe 10 (2018).

Halberstam, Jack. "The wild beyond: With and for the undercommons." The undercommons: Fugitive planning and black study (2013): 2-13.

Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. "The undercommons: Fugitive planning and black study." (2013): 1.

Mattern, Shannon. "Fugitive libraries." ​Places Journal (2019).