NYPL Opens New Branch at Rikers Island

The New York Public Library has a new branch. An unofficial new branch, that isn’t exactly open to the public. This new branch, opened July 26, 2016, is the permanent public library at Rikers Island Correctional Facility, housed in the women’s Rose M. Singer Center. The Rikers Island library “holds 1,200 books — spanning everything from comics to sci-fi, from Spanish language works to nonfiction classics — and it will be open every Tuesday for about six hours each day. Inmates can check out two books for two weeks, with the goal of serving half of the prison one week and the other half the next.”[1] Most of the books have been donated. There are very few limits on types of material, but hardcover books are prohibited. Although housed in the women’s facility, the library will also service the men’s prison once a week via a mobile book cart.