Hello, everyone. How do you handle requests mailed to your reference department from prisoners incarcerated in Michigan prisons whether the prison is within your service area or not? When a prisoner asks for books we write a letter to the prisoner and suggest they use their prison's interlibrary loan system. We have been answering reference questions such as what is the address of a particular publisher, will you please send me a copy of a picture of a circus, etc., via return letter. Someone working at a Michigan prison is now questioning us as to whether the public library should answer reference questions from prisoners. Does your library have a policy about this? What do you do when you receive reference requests from prisoners? I suspect prison librarians are overworked and cannot answer all the questions they must get. Thanks for thinking about this and sending suggestions and comments. Cathy Cathy Sullivan Seblonka Collection Development/Reference Librarian Peter White Public Library 217 N. Front St. Marquette, MI 49855 906-226-4312 cathys@pwpl.info