In her twenties, Chelsea Jordan-Makely ’29PhD worked all manner of jobs, often two or three at a time. “I worked in the service industry, did administrative work, and cleaned homes,” she says. “It was a difficult time, but books were a lifeline for me.”
She recalls preferring to get books from the town “free box” because she feared incurring library fines and fees and had not always had positive experiences with public libraries. She wondered what would happen if libraries took a more service-oriented perspective.
“I thought, what if libraries were friendlier and treated people with respect? Then it occurred to me that if I took all of the skills I learned in all these odd jobs over the years, I would be one hell of a librarian!” she says.
Thus began her career in public libraries. Over the next 15 years, Jordan-Makely worked in four different countries, often multiple library jobs at a time, and gained a wide breadth of experience.
In 2019, she became library director at the Griswold Memorial Library in Colrain, Massachusetts. In 2024, she received the National Medal for Library Services from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Jordan-Makely also launched a library consulting practice, Renewed Libraries, through which she provides training and consulting services for library workers, and researches the topic of library services and incarceration.
The PRISM Project
The scaffolding for the PRISM study was established through an IMLS-funded planning project before Jordan-Makely joined the project as the principal consultant. She also had prior connections with the Library Research Service (LRS) and the Colorado State Library, through their work on the Library Services and Incarceration survey, and because Jordan-Makely had worked for LRS as a Research Fellow when she was pursuing her MLIS at the University of Denver.
The PRISM study used surveys, focus groups, and in-person interviews with people incarcerated in Colorado prisons to learn whether and how using the library was beneficial. Jordan-Makely says the research team was surprised to find that the term “pro-social behavior” was not well-defined.
“It’s a bit of a buzzword, embraced by the American Correctional Association. At first, we took it to mean the opposite of anti-social,” she says.
The results of the study offered a more nuanced view of how prison libraries benefitted patrons.
“The library offered them the opportunity to step back from difficult situations and find a calm and quiet sanctuary,” she says. “People who used the library while incarcerated regarded it as an essential resource.”
The PRISM study quotes heavily from interviews and focus groups, such as one participant who said that access to the library was essential as hygiene products, like soap. “Because that keeps you going, keeps you alive,” he said.
The research also made clear the barriers to access. Even Colorado, which offers more comprehensive library services for incarcerated people than most states in the nation, still falls short of the standards recommended by the American Library Association (ALA), which were revised in 2024. To aid in further assessments across the country, the PRISM Project created a toolkit, including interview questions and a codebook for processing data, to make the research easily replicable in other settings.
“I would love to see this study done in Massachusetts,” says Jordan-Makely.
Starting a PhD at Simmons SLIS
When the Simmons SLIS West campus (based in Western Massachusetts) moved to Greenfield Community College, she knew it was the perfect time to pursue her PhD.
“That work always took place off the side of my desk, though it felt really important,” she says. “Like a lot of people in library leadership, I was feeling burned out. I was seeking a space where I could dig into those important problems and devote myself full time to researching library services for incarcerated individuals. Simmons provided that opportunity.”
Jordan-Makely was further enticed to the program after connecting with Professor Lisa Hussey, who previously worked in carceral libraries and has applied theoretical frameworks from the social sciences to her research in LIS.
“Part of what I’m interested in is the attitudes of LIS workers toward people who are incarcerated or otherwise system-impacted, so Lisa’s work with Bourdieu’s concept of habitus [how an individual’s behaviors and preferences are shaped by social structures, including class, gender, and ethnicity] really spoke to me, and I knew she would be a great advisor for me,” Jordan-Makely says. “Simmons has provided me with the intellectual community that I was really longing to work with. Especially now, it’s valuable to be able to think critically and systematically with other people, and do our best to prepare and shape what’s coming.”
For students considering pursuing the PhD program, a well-defined research pathway is vital for undertaking such a demanding course of study.
“I came to this program with a clear sense of what drives me,” she says.
Beyond prison libraries, she notes, marginalized communities are not getting the library services and resources they need.
“If we can explain the value of library work as a whole, and why we need to fund libraries as life affirming institutions, then we could potentially help people before they are in positions where they commit crimes or experience mental health crises,” she says. “Then maybe we can convince policy makers that this is where the money needs to go, not focused solely on punishment. I’m hoping to influence policy so we can get more funding, more resources, and more love in general for library work.”
The ceremony for the Boucher Memorial Award for Intellectual Freedom was held on September 9 at the Colorado Association of Libraries Annual Conference; Jordan-Makely received the honor in absentia so that she could be present to teach her first class at SLIS West the following day.