[MUSIC PLAYING]
I have to say, I came into this knowing how much of a bummer it was going to be to hear about the prison industrial complex. I did not anticipate furniture cataloging discussion and how fun that would be, though.
Just because this is terrible stuff that we're dealing with, it doesn't mean that wallowing in that is productive or helpful. So that's something I've learned with this type of work and other work I've done.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You are listening to WREK Atlanta. And this is Lost in the Stacks, the research library rock and roll radio show. I'm Charlie Bennett in the studio with Fred Rascoe and Marlee Givens. Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you are here for, we hope you dig it.
Our show today is called Who Made That Chair.
Huh, wait, do we have to flip over chairs in the studio to find the manufacturer's tag?
No, we don't have to, but that might be interesting. Another time. For this show--
[LAUGHTER]
--the chair in question is actually all the chairs in an academic library.
So there's a literary term for that, right? It's kind of like a city in New York, right?
Synecdoche.
Yeah. Gesundheit.
Dude. Remember all the conversations we had about chairs and tables in the build up to the library renewal?
Uh-huh.
I even went out to Chicago with a group of Georgia Tech folks to a factory furniture fair kind of mart thing. So many chairs. So many manufacturers.
Well, all library furniture comes from somewhere. And a lot of us probably don't think about who makes those chairs and tables and floor poufs or sofas that we see every day. But we spoke to two folks who looked into things at their library, and they were not happy about what they found. We'll learn about what happened when they looked deeper and the conversations that followed.
So our songs today are about what curiosity can reveal, authority control, and prisons.
Spoiler alert.
Prisons have been inspiring protest music for a long time. In fact, we'll start with a track that is 100 years old from 1924. This is a song about a famous prison in New York. This is "Sing Sing Prison Blues" by Bessie Smith right here on Lost in the Stacks.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Gonna journey up the Hudson. Goin' on a lonesome trail.
That was "Sing Sing Prison Blues" by Bessie Smith. This is Lost in the Stacks, and today's show is called Who Made That Chair. In other words, what do we know about who manufactures the furniture that we use in our libraries. We interviewed two librarians from Alfred University, Kevin Adams and Maria Planansky, about research that they conducted in their own library to determine where their library furniture came from and who made it. And it all started with Kevin flipping over a chair.
I forget the exact details, but it was one of those kind of quieter times in the library, kind of coming off of a break. And I was in Scholes Library. So there are two library buildings for us, Herrick and Scholes. And I was over in Scholes, and for whatever reason, the chairs were like flipped up on a desk, and I was kind of setting up shop. My office isn't over there, but I had a meeting. So I was just doing a little bit of checking emails and that kind of thing.
And I decided to flip the chairs over and get it all ready for patrons. And while I was flipping over the chairs, though, I saw that one of the chairs had a tag on it for Corecraft. I had recently become aware of what Corecraft is. It is the state of New York's-- how do I say this? It's their label. It's their brand. And what the brand is is the group that sells prison-made furniture.
So it's the company name of the prison manufacturers.
Yes, exactly. Yeah, prison manufacturer. And so I was like, oh, that's kind of alarming. And I wanted to know a little bit more about why that was there when we had made that purchase. Because the chair looked like it could have been from anywhere from the '70s to the '90s. It wasn't particularly new, probably. But it also raised questions of like, what other furniture might we have in the library that was made in a prison?
You said you had just recently learned what Corecraft was.
Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: Was there any story to how that happened or was it just coincidence? Yeah. So I had recently gotten involved with the Abolitionist Library Association, which is a group of librarians that are committed to prison abolition. Many are also committed to police abolition. And it was in that group that I had found out about this various state manufacturers. There's been a movement in New York, or there was a movement in New York kind of during the pandemic.
And the City University of New York, CUNY, their student body was leading conversations about ceasing purchasing from Corecraft. And so I had heard about that through the Abolitionist Library Association.
So what was your immediate feeling when it clicked, oh, this is prison manufacturer furniture that I'm flipping over.
You know, I wish I could say I was surprised.
[LAUGHS]
I'd say curiosity, honestly. It was not particularly surprising to see. So Alfred University is unique in that it's statutory, so it gets some of its funding from the state, and Scholes Library gets more of its funding from the state than Herrick does. It's on the state side. I was not surprised to see it. I guess a little bit alarmed, but yeah, mostly curious.
Yeah. And I'm not trying to set you up for, were you shocked and appalled immediately?
[LAUGHTER]
I feel like this kind of thing, we see it so much, and it just kind of goes by maybe the first or second or third time. So it catches your notice and then it sort of waits, right, to come back again.
Maria, did Kevin come to you and say, hey, look what I found on the bottom of this chair and then--
Yeah.
Right.
[LAUGHS]
MARIA PLANANSKY: Basically, he-- well, he came to the working group that I had recently joined. And he said, yeah, I was flipping over a chair and I saw this label. That's the Departments of Corrections manufacturer for New York State. What are we doing? Like we should talk about this as a group. One of the really great things about working at Alfred is having this anti-racism and anti-oppression working group. Our dean was part of that conversation. And we all kind of talked about it.
And there were various levels of reaction. There wasn't like an, oh my God. But there was deep concern in a very academic, stereotypical academic kind of way, I would say, which is like, oh no, we need to investigate, et cetera. And so Kevin was like, yeah, I think we should reckon with this. And I was very game to do that. Before I came into librarianship, I've done a lot of things. I was a high school teacher, I worked at a research nonprofit.
But I had also done inventory managing in a warehouse. So I was very, very familiar with what basically an inventory audit would look like. And so I sort of raised my hand as a new person saying, I would like to get involved. The thing that shocked me about all of this was not that our state side library-- it serves the College of Ceramics New York State Statutory College-- was not that we had furniture from a prison manufacturer, but that the library was like, yeah, let's get into it.
That was a really new thing for me too. Because people talk a lot about reckoning with things. But there's not always movement. And so I was very interested in answering those questions of do we still purchase from this? And are there others, other companies associated with prison labor that we don't know about? We just don't know. It's a bit of a black box.
So I think it's important, because some people who listen to this might think, so what? You get chairs from wherever you get them. What's the thing you don't like? Or what's the thing that concerns you about the fact that this was of prison manufacture?
Oh gosh. Well, at least for me, I won't speak for Kevin, but I disagree with how prisons operate in the United States, just totally and completely. That is my personal viewpoint. I won't speak for Alfred University either. And so knowing that, and about a decade or so ago, really understanding the horrors that the American prison system is, just getting that.
And then having our University basically invest in a profit making corporation affiliated with pretty much paying very, very little to incarcerated folks for manufacturing items that we use. It was just really just really kind of gross and repugnant in a lot of levels.
The typical hourly wage is $0.10 to $0.50, right? MARIA PLANANSKY: It's very little. It can vary state to state.
Yeah, it varies from state to state. And I think I approach this in a similar way to Maria. So I'm thinking about this from an abolitionist perspective. And for me, the goal of this is to not be investing money in the prison industrial complex, plain and simple. The goal of this is not reform prison labor so that then we can feel better about it, but rather, stop giving money to the prison industrial complex. Now, that being said, yeah, working conditions in prisons are terrible.
Training is often not appropriate for the level of work that is expected. Wages are atrocious. People are paid, yeah, we'll say around $0.50 an hour. But then on top of that, things are taken out of the wages that they're paid, and are expected to then pay for things in commissary, which are marked up. Yeah, it's all around not a practice that we want to be supporting.
And kind of part of thinking about this from the anti-racism and anti-oppression perspective is that the prison industrial complex in the United States super disproportionately impacts people that are marginalized, especially Black folks. And so there's this kind of racial component to it as well that we want to be aware of.
And it's not like the furniture is then-- even it's manufactured so cheaply because it's using incarcerated labor, but then it's sold at a standard price. And so the corporate entities involved in creating that furniture, you know, not to get into any prices, but generate much larger profit than a more traditional manufacturing process.
Yeah. And it'll vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. So the state manufacturers typically sell things for a little bit less. But the private manufacturers that we found, we don't really see reflections of their relationship to prison labor and their pricing.
We'll be back with more from Kevin Adams and Maria Planansky after a music set.
File this set under TT194.T78.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You just heard "Curiosity" by Turnover, and before that "Compromised" by Public Practice. Songs about curiosity and how it can open our eyes to some unpleasant things.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in the Stacks, and we are speaking with Kevin Adams and Maria Planansky of Alfred University about what they did after learning that some of their library furniture had been produced by prison labor manufacturers. So the chair came to the committee and you all decided that you were going to do something. How did you get there? And what's the thing that you started doing?
So kind of as Maria said, it was actually a pretty quick conversation. We would meet for like an hour maybe every couple of weeks, every month, and this was one of the things that we discussed in that meeting, in the anti-racism and anti-oppression working group. And one of the members recommended that we do an audit. Maria, do you remember, was it you that made that recommendation? Or-- I'm not sure.
I don't remember who made it. If I did, great. If I didn't, I endorse whoever made it.
Committee work is so cloudy.
Yeah. Somebody made that recommendation. And we decided, OK, yeah, so we'll do an audit of the furniture in the library. And I was interested in working on this project and Maria volunteered as well. So that was the initial decision. And then Maria and I met and kind of made up a plan for how we were going to go about that audit, and kind of scoped it so that it would be manageable.
So we decided to do an audit of just the patron furniture and both of the libraries as our sample, because it was a manageable sample that we would hopefully be able to kind of track the history of the purchasing, unlike stuff that would show up in offices and things like that.
When you start an audit, do you have to go to that furniture, like you said, the patron furniture? Do you have to literally turn each one over? Are there other ways to tell where it came from? MARIA PLANANSKY: Oh, yeah, you sure do have to turn each chair, couch, what have you over. I do-- just as a bit of a caveat, what we're talking about is incredibly serious, right? However, if you were to see Kevin and I scrambling all over the different floors, I think we look kind of silly.
We like got blueprints of both libraries. We're like, we're going to tackle the statutory side in one go and then we're going to tackle the private side in another go. We're going to go floor by floor. And then we're like, what are the staging areas for our flex space? We really approached it pretty strategically, knowing that patron furniture is meant to at least our patron furniture-- is really meant to be movable and configured on a daily basis about something.
Maybe there's an event and 50 chairs will show up. So we did have to be a bit strategic and time-sensitive. The good news is that our libraries are a busy place. The bad news is that it is tricky. So-- So the definition of audit here is we looked at as much furniture as fast as we could all at once.
Yeah. I would say that we were speedy about it, but we took our time. We took the necessary time. Yeah.
Yeah. No, I don't think you rushed the job. I just-- when I first saw this in our notes for the show-- furniture audit-- I was like, oh, I wonder if they had to go to some office, or if they had to get some file, or they had to get some inventory list. No. You looked at the bottom-- the tags.
Well, if only. That was something that we ran into. We did a physical audit-- you know, of all this furniture. And then something else that happened out of this was, well, we have to go to Files, and understand the purchase ordering behind all of this, and see the documentation. And we were able to see some, but not all. I'm not sure if others have experienced this in their institutions.
But a lot of staff turnover or administrative turnover, there was some sort of calamity somewhere in-- Files before 2006 were vanished for purchase ordering. So we made do. But if we had not done the physical audit, we would not have had knowledge of so much, especially on the statutory side. It hadn't been renovated for quite some time.
So it's possible that you would have found evidence of the manufacturer, but not necessarily when it had been purchased? And--
Correct.
--and things like that. OK. Or how much it might have cost.
Mm-hmm. Correct.
Were you all modeling this process on something that you've done before? Or was this sort of the first time that you were going to approach a "where did all of these things come from" kind of research?
It was a first time for me.
Yeah. It was both-- the first time for me. I'd never done a furniture audit. I just had not done that. When I did inventory management, I was pretty familiar with purchase ordering, and bulk shipping, and all that kind of jazz associated with trying to figure out, oh, something's coming to a warehouse. And you have to stage this, and then you have to move X to Y space, et cetera. So I sort of took that and applied it to the living being that is the library building.
But it was definitely a first for me. I mean there, was like an impromptu classroom that we came upon where-- I guess we'll come back next-- tomorrow or something like that. So it was a first for me, too, honestly. Yeah.
So what was the end result of the audit-- meaning, what was the physical or digital recording of the audit?
Yeah. So we had a big spreadsheet that recorded all of the individual pieces of furniture that we looked at. And I was keeping that as we were going through. And then we went back and did some metadata control, I guess you could say. We also added some photographs to the spreadsheet so that we could better identify what we were talking about. But yeah, it wound up being just a big Google Sheet. And from there, we kind of edited it, and cleaned it up, and made it make sense.
Because at first, there were-- [CHUCKLING] we had-- if we could identify the manufacturer, it was there. But also, we were just plugging in some kind of description of the furniture. We had identifiers like rooms, and floors, and that kind of thing to go off of. But also just a brief description of what the furniture was was a part of that spreadsheet, as well. And that was not controlled at all when we first began. And then we kind of had to go back in and clean that up a little bit.
And-- so that we could work with the data.
Yeah. I think the act of going ba-- I'm so glad we-- right at the get-go, we were like, we're going to take pictures to make sure. And I think that was a really great choice. Kevin, you've said this before, and it's just so true. You can recognize a manufacturer walking into a room like, oh, that's the line of such and such a manufacturer-- this style of chair leg. So that was an intended outcome. But yeah, cleaning up and doing a controlled vocabulary, we're very librarian about it.
And then breaking it up into different types of furniture, like lounge seating, or task seating, that kind of thing. And patterns emerged pretty quickly from that controlled vocabulary.
You're listening to Lost in the Stacks. And we'll be back with more about library furniture, who makes it, and why that matters on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right. OK. Nicholas, on your own time.
OK. This is Nicholas Felton. You're listening to Lost in the Stacks on WREK Atlanta.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Today's show is called "Who Made That Chair?" To answer that question at their library, as you heard, our guests did an inventory of all the furniture. Now, during the interview, we ended up going down a little metadata path, and-- about the strategy for the furniture inventory. And we had to cut it out. But I'd like to play it for you now along with some Allman Brothers.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We were looking over the spreadsheet that we had created. And we saw that we had described the chairs in so many different ways, using different descriptions for color, material, size-- different words for all of that, whether we were calling something medium or mid-sized. We were not being formal about it. And so we had to go back and clean up that data so that we would be able to really understand what we were looking at.
And so we created a cute little controlled vocabulary for ourselves-- fully internal. Just the two of us ever saw it. But that was kind of a fun exercise that hearkened back to something that I would have done in grad school as an exercise in learning about metadata. And as an information literacy librarian, I don't often create metadata. So it was a fun exercise.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARIA PLANANSKY: I'm very familiar-- I'm very familiar with metadata creation and figuring all that kind of stuff out. So it was very satisfying. And I didn't feel very daunted by it at all. One of the more interesting things is how we became really reliant in our very raw data on things like wheelie. Or like, oh, that one has movable arms. And we would have lingo for things.
Something that was dissatisfying in terms-- purely metadata creation was like we had to have an other category-- just a miscellaneous or an other category. And it's because we just had random things. We would just have these giant wooden blocks. We have two of them and one of our libraries. We also have floor poofs, you know? I'm always like poof. Like, what do you say? Other can mean anything.
File this set under HD 8051.A62.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That was "Labor in Vain" by Linus' Blanket, which Charlie thought sounded a little twinkly.
It sounded a lot twinkly.
Before that, "Trabajadores al Poder," which means workers to power, by an unknown Chilean choir. We really don't know who sang it. Those are songs about a different kind of authority control-- the authority of labor to control who profits from labor.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Welcome back to Lost in the Stacks. We're continuing our interview with Kevin Adams and Maria Planansky from Alfred University Libraries, where Kevin is Information Literacy Librarian and Maria is Collection Management Librarian.
We've heard about the furniture audit that they conducted to investigate which of their library's chairs, tables, woodblocks, floor poofs, and so on had been produced by people incarcerated in prisons. And now we'll hear how they communicated their findings.
Who was your intended audience of this spreadsheet? Did you have in your head who you were going to take it to? Or was this just for your own use?
The spreadsheet itself was for our own use. But we were, from there, able to generate graphs and data that we were able to use to talk a little bit about the research that we had done. And we had a pretty wide target audience for this, I think.
Initially we were interested in sharing this information outside of our own libraries, within the Regional Library Association that we're a part of-- SUNYLA-- Because they're governed by some of the same state laws that schools is governed by that dictate purchasing from Corcraft. And we discovered some other manufacturers that we wanted to make people aware of, as well. We are also-- we did this whole project with the blessing of the library administration.
And so we wanted to show the evidence of what we found with them so that we could make steps to make changes and take action within our libraries, as well. And finally, we're starting to think about how we're going to share this with the University at large and figure out what that can look like. Anything to add, Maria?
Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting, this question about who is our intended audience, because we were trying to just find out-- just? We were trying to find out for ourselves and for the working group. And then as the results came in, the data came in, it was like, oh, OK. Combination of the audit-- and then, really, I think hand-in-hand with the audit was a real-- kind of an inventory of our procurement methods at Alfred University.
And so we've mentioned this before, but Alfred University, it's a private university. But it's also not. It's also part of the State University of New York system with that little statutory college, College of Ceramics. And so we-- I did not know this going in, even though I am sort of borderline a state employee. But we are truly beholden to many, many SUNY bylaws and procedures, as well as the private-side procedures and regulations.
So one is enforced by state law, and the other is a private university saying this is the way we do things. We have to respect both. And that was something that was really, really eye opening for me, especially since I do collection management and often deal with a lot of funds both on the state side and private side. We have two separate budgets. So it was actually to untangle.
And so I think the audit combined with, oh, wow, we're part of the SUNY system, and we have to be beholden to these big things. And then we're also beholden in this private side way. It kind of changed, in my mind, our target audience. Like Kevin mentioned SUNYLA-- the SUNY Library Association. We brought this information to them once we concluded our audit, and talked to the procurement office.
And it was a really, really great conversation with other librarians in the SUNY system because we are part of SUNY, even though we're a SUNY-lite, as people call us. And so it was really fascinating. Because of that private side angle, we're able to be a lot more nimble in some ways because our funding is different than other SUNY schools. And so it was just really, really, I thought, a very fruitful conversation. Kevin, what did you think about it when we talked that past June?
It was exciting. It was really exciting to connect with people that were-- wanted to make change and wanted to figure out what to do. Making change to state laws as people that are just working in higher education libraries-- academic libraries-- a lot of us don't have the training in how to do that. And so it was a great, exciting, and encouraging conversation.
I think that people are-- we're all still just kind of trying to figure out what do we do next about state requirements to purchase from prison labor manufacturers? I actually don't know if this is related to the conversation that we had that day. But years later, it came up in SUNY's faculty governance to start talking a little bit about how to divest from Corcraft. And it came about because one of the SUNYs-- and I forget which one it is right now.
But one of the SUNYs put it to a faculty vote. And they said, we don't want to purchase from Corcraft anymore. And that has kind of gone up the line to the SUNY Faculty Senate. So that conversation is happening-- not really sure where it's going right now. It's-- yeah. It's one that's unfolding.
Have you had any negative response?
I don't I don't know about negative. But folks sometimes are a little bit hesitant to condemn prison labor. And so I've--
That's true.
--lot of fruitful--
You're right. KEVIN ADAMS: --conversations, just sharing with folks a little bit about the conditions, people's ability to choose to work or not, and how that's actually much more limited than folks might want to think. But you occasionally get somebody that wants to say that it's really, really beneficial to the people that are incarcerated. And it's really not the case for many reasons.
Those have usually been pretty good conversations because I'm able to share a little bit and open people's perspectives. MARIA PLANANSKY: Kevin, I remember something you shared with me that I had not known about prison. Often people are like, oh, no, prison labor is actually very good. It's like jobs training. But I remember you shared with me-- from some reporting-- that that is just simply not the case.
A lot of the places that use prison-- like corporations-- not necessarily state-run corporations. But a lot of the corporations that use prison labor refuse to hire formerly-incarcerated folks once they've left prison.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the really famous example of that is the folks that are fighting fires in California-- incarcerated people that are trained to fight fires, and fight fires while they're incarcerated. And then after they get out, they're not allowed to join the fire department because of their record.
That's new to me. I had known that prison labor was used to make furniture. I had not known that they were used to fight fires.
It's just for so many-- KEVIN ADAMS: --particularly dystopic. Yeah. So many horrible-- asbestos removal was something I hadn't known about. Corcraft is not just a furniture manufacturer. It does services, as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Asbestos removal is one of the services that SUNY and CUNY will both contract with Corcraft for.
Is Corcraft craft exclusively prison labor? So if you use Corcraft for asbestos removal, you are using prison labor? And I have to imagine that training and protective equipment provided for asbestos equipment removal is probably less-- strenuous is the word, maybe, I'm looking-- less rigorous. MARIA PLANANSKY: It's less regulated. Less regulated. That's the word. Yes.
Yeah.
Most-- Oh, sorry, Kevin. You can go.
Oh, I was just going to say, yeah, and so Corcraft is the name for New York State. But there are different providers of manufacturers and services in different states. Not all states have this set up, but many do. And it varies a little bit state-by-state.
I think the negative response, if I could call it that, is oftentimes when a problem is explained. And I view this as a problem, purchasing from prison manufacturers. Often when a big problem is expressed, or divulged, or really detailed-- when I think back to that SUNYLA conversation, we really got into state law. So oftentimes when something like that is brought up, people feel really bad. People just feel negative. And they're not really sure what to do, or what have you.
And that's not just for this initiative that we've done. That's across the board. That can happen with people. People just feel really stuck. I think by explaining our library administration's response to the unearthing this information and their real support, and then explaining either the state law in New York or encouraging folks-- well, not here, but encouraging elsewhere-- to really investigate your own state laws is something that people can feel empowered by.
People are welcome to look something up on their own. And I think people should feel empowered to really understand how their university or institution works. Most people don't have all this procurement stuff committed to memory. But finding out that information can actually be very, very powerful. And so the negative response is the, oh, no, I feel really stuck, or I feel overwhelmed, or just the-- throwing your hands up and saying, the prison industrial complex, ah.
And just feeling like-- just that overwhelmed. MARLEE GIVENS: You've been listening to Lost in the Stacks. Our show today is called, "Who Made That Chair?" We'd like to Thank our guests, Kevin Adams and Maria Planansky from Alfred University Libraries, for encouraging us to flip over some chairs in our own libraries.
File this set under HV 9471.P746.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That was "Prison Wall Blues" by Cannon's Jug Stompers. And Fred, I have to say, at this moment I'm thinking of country classics and Joe Bussard.
That's right up his alley.
Yeah. Jug bands-- happy little jug band. Before that was "Oh Warden" by David Allen Coe. Those are songs about trying to cope with the prison system and jug bands.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARLEE GIVENS: Our show today was called, "Who Made that Chair?" And I have to admit, I am not feeling very deep today. So my closing question for the both of you is, what is your favorite piece of library furniture, Fred?
OK. So my favorite piece of library furniture is my stand-up desk because I really like having a stand-up desk. That's changed my life. And I did look around to see who made it. Looks like it was made by Humanscale. Guess what they do? They do sell furniture made by incarcerated folks. So I'm feeling really great about that. So--
Oh, dude. FRED RASCOE: --hopefully, if you have made Humanscale furniture, prisoners that may be listening, thank you. And I hope Humanscale gives you a job when you get out. Marlee?
My short answer is anything with a footstool because I like to take a nap.
[LAUGHING]
How about you, Charlie?
There's those huge wooden studio tables on the second floor of the Crosland Tower. I love them. I've loved studio tables ever since I first came to school, and we have so many of them. And I literally have no idea who made them. And now I have to go not flip one over, but crawl under one. They're very heavy. OK, roll some not very deep credit music, Fred.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Is that OK?
Perfect. Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, written and produced by Alex McGhee, Charlie Bennett, Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
Legal counsel and a really well thought out metadata scheme for furniture were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia. CHARLIE BENNETT: Phillip's got his finger in all kinds of pies.
Special thanks to Kevin and Maria for being on the show, to everyone who takes a moment to understand the system a little better. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening.
Our web page is library.gatech.e du/lostinthestacks, where you'll find our most recent episode, a link to our podcast feed, and a web form if you want to get in touch with us.
Next week's show, we'll take a closer look at our profession-- another in our series of institutional interrogations. CHARLIE BENNETT: Light interrogation.
Time for our last song today. The exploitation of labor from the prison industrial complex is a heavy topic to address. So we're going to get light next week, but it's still-- we're landing heavy this week.
OK. I'm with you.
But it's a necessary-- it's necessary to look into this, and we're glad our guests guided us through It. They got us in a thoughtful and inspiring discussion groove.
And because they're from New York, you might even say it was a New York groove.
Aha. Well, that was a walk around the block to get to that title. But I am so here for it.
This is "New York Groove" by Ace Frehley right here on Lost in the Stacks. Have a great weekend, everyone.
[MUSIC PLAYING]