[In this video, six people are having a conversation. The people’s names are Chelsea Jordan-Makely, Charissa Brammer, Amy Bahlenhorst, Sara Wicen, Carol Peeples, and Renee Barnes.]

 Chelsea Jordan-Makely: So our next question is: talk about the importance of partnerships in this project and what was that experience like for you?

Charissa Brammer: I think we’ve got the partners here. So I can talk about the importance of partnerships from the project standpoint that this would not have been possible without Renee’s team. Without Carol, that’s it. We probably would have figured out a way to make it work, but it would not have gone as smoothly or as quickly as it has without those partnerships, especially with…it’s sort of all about connection, right? Like Renee has a lot of connection in DOC, and Carol has a lot of connections with folks and with the lives of people after they leave incarceration and things like that. And so being able to leverage those and just getting to be like the research nerd that goes in, does the focus groups and the surveys, I think that that it’s that’s the only way it’s really possible.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: What about from your standpoint, Carol?

Carol Peeples: You know, it was really it was…It was a great exercise as well as in developing partnerships across the state because we’re really good…we have stronger partnerships in the Denver metro area and that made it a lot…Those were easy, but then because we’ve sent people all the way out to Grand Junction and all over the state and I had one funny employee who is new to driving and she drove the Million Dollar Highway. I mean in that she’s like, “Ahh I’d never do another again,” but that was really important to for this, for them to do, to work with us. We did find we had to be…kind of pushy sometimes like, you know, just reminding people and reaching out again and again, people are busy and but we built this partner… this project helped us build partnerships that are paying back…We’re still working on now so that it really was great opportunity for us to develop some of these initial partnerships.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: It’s a cool outcome itself.

Carol Peeples: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: And anything you want to add there, Renee?

Renee Barnes: I would just say that my team’s connections within DOC really did, as Charissa said, make it a lot easier to facilitate getting people in and out of the facilities. They really didn’t, there wasn’t a lot of questioning of the project. Which we anticipated there might have been more of than there, there actually was. People were really, really on board with it and having built relationships, not just that facility level, but also at the administrative level within DOC, having worked with some of those people for years on different library-related things really helps kind of smooth, smooth away and they’re interested in what the outcomes are, what the, what the information is that’s coming out of the study, so they’re invested as well.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: Hurray for that.

Amy Bahlenhorst: Can I add one thing in there? And like I had mentioned this whole landscape was completely new to me. And so having Carol kind of paint a picture of what it’s like for people posting incarceration and then having Renee and her team paint a picture of what it’s like for people who are currently incarcerated was really, really important to me. And it really helped kind of humanize the whole experience for me, and it helped me. I mentioned about language, helped me learn about what language I should be using, what different terms of phrases meant that I had no idea what things were, where we were going, what to expect. All of those things we would have been completely in the dark without these partners.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: Right? So it’s so much more than just social capital. It’s also this knowledge that we can tap into thanks to you.

Charissa Brammer: Yeah. We also, I’ll jump in because we also have Chelsea as a partner, as our researcher, our interviewer and also a primary researcher. And I think that that’s been really important too, both because she brings a lot of experience in research and a lot of knowledge, but also was able to…didn’t attend each of the focus groups and is able so was able to have a slightly different view on the transcripts because she’s analyzing the straight up transcripts and I think that’s been really helpful to have those like different points of view in the room as we’re doing the analysis plus doing a ton of analysis.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: It’s been really interesting to have that perspective and distance on this and really this is such an interesting and rewarding project. Thank you so much for reaching out to me.

Carol Peeples: Chelsea, I didn’t realize you were the person listening to every single transcript.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: I just, I just have been reading and coding them.

Carol Peeples: OK.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: But I do think that sometimes that distance has helped me to have a different perspective and one interesting thing has been noticing the differences between the outside and the inside transcripts for sure. But it’s also great sometimes.

Carol Peeples: OK, I’m gonna turn the tables on you and interview you now.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: No, no, no. I’m gonna keep us on track, cause that’s part of my role in this project also.

Carol Peeples: I get it. I wanna talk to you later though.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: I would love that. Sara, is there anything that you wanna add about partnerships?

Sara Wicen: I would just reiterate that it really felt like it would not have been possible without everybody that we were working with throughout the process. And yeah, Carol’s connection to the people that have been formally incarcerated and then ILD [Institutional Library Development] support from, just like, talking with us about what to expect and sharing stories to being there with us throughout the focus groups. And even after the focus groups, we often had some time where ILD, somebody member of Institutional Library Development, would be able to help answer questions that…the people in the focus groups had about their prison library services and I think that was very helpful as well to have that perspective and somebody a little bit more knowledgeable on prison libraries in the room and then have the Library Research Service us conducting the focus group as just the researchers. So having all those components was just help make I think a more well rounded experience for the people in the focus groups as well.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: Yeah, that’s really important that it’s not just in and out, but that ongoing connection helps to build trust. And I think it’s important that we acknowledge too, that this research project was many years in the making and previous iterations of a grant to set up to get to this point even, so.