Unchained Books is a small group in Fort Collins, CO committed to prisoner support. Our primary focus is collecting donated books and making them available free to people imprisoned in Colorado. Individual prisoners request books based on subject areas and we fill their requests as best as our inventory allows. We operate in solidarity with prisoners, working to ensure that people have the ability to pursue reading and communication in efforts to make meaning and purpose in life through self-determination, education, and expression. And we believe it is important to remind those in prison that others know of their existence.
In addition to the books-to-prisoners project, we also write letters to political prisoners and work on periodic individual prisoner support in the form of fundraising, outreach, and building community awareness about specific legal struggles.
I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke in me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.
— Malcolm X
There are several ways to work with this project and help get books to people in Colorado prisons:
–donate books that you are finished with (we have a drop-off location or we can arrange a pick-up).
–we’re always looking for ways to pay shipping charges so that we can keep sending packages of books. if you are interested in organizing a fundraiser, donating money, or other funding ideas, please contact us.
–we get together usually every two weeks to read letters, fill requests, and package up books and there’s always more to do, so let us know if you’re interested in coming to the next work party.
for more information, write to unchainedbooks@riseup.net
unchainedbooks.wordpress.com 
I don’t understand how this works. Any time when I have wanted to send books to prisoners, I was told that they can only come from the publisher. In other words, that I could not send used books, only new ones, and they had to be shipped from the warehouse of a company.
Each prison has different rules when it comes to sending books/packages, and many require that you send brand new books (Sometimes it has to be from amazon or other approved Senders)or books directly from the book store. There are very few prisons we are currently able to send to at the moment in Colorado, but are seeking ways to change that at the moment.