District Prison Libraries in Uttarakhand State: A Study of Almora and Haridwar Prison Libraries

Prisons are supposed to possess a good library system but it is seen that in our country not much attention is paid towards developing prison libraries. Though good attempts were made in Tihar jail at the time when Mrs. Kiran Bedi was the Inspector General of the jail during 1993–1995, a branch of Delhi Public Library was opened in the jail and prisoners were provided library services. Since then, no big developments are seen except that sporadic efforts in Gujarat state. Uttarakhand being a new state does not possess a good prison library system but its two prisons-Almora and Haridwar-are compared in the present paper for their library services.