2024 Library Futures Research Network Award

Library Futures has long been interested in the library rights of incarcerated people. In 2024, we announced that Megdi Abebe and the up//root collective was awarded a Library Futures Research Network Award to collaborate with the Friends of the San Quentin Library on a zine project to “highlight structural challenges incarcerated library workers and patrons face” by introducing readers to the workers and letting them tell their own stories.

This publication, Controlled Chaos: Where The Wild Things Read, is a zine by the workers of the San Quentin Prison Library about their dreams, struggles, and day-to-day lives on the job. Visit our website to download a PDF formatted as a zine.

Funding for this project was provided by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation. Library Futures is proud to support the work of our community and to amplify the voices of those doing crucial work on equitable access in the digital age. We are grateful to the members of our inaugural research network for being a part of it.

About the Grantee

Megdi Abebe is an academic librarian based in Oakland, CA. She is also a member of up//root zines.

up//root zines is a collective of librarians and archivists who create zines about information work and our communities.