Contraband Marginalia
September 17, 2024 at 11:20PMFor Split Lip Magazine, Kasey Butcher Santana writes about leaving academia to become a jail librarian and the deep satisfaction she gets from assisting patrons to find the books and information they’re searching for. She revels in being able to get to know a little more about those she serves by the ephemera left behind as bookmarks in material they’ve returned, treasures she protects in her desk in case the owner calls after them.
Some items responded to literature—lists of verses, journals, a key to characters in A Clockwork Orange. Others were scraps from passing time—score tallies, stamps, drawings, handmade tarot cards. We did not keep detailed circulation information and incarcerated people shared books off the record, so I usually could not deduce whom these treasures belonged to.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/09/17/contraband-marginalia/
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