It started with a few books and University of Arkansas at Little Rock law professor, Charles Chastain. In the beginning, it was a grassroots project dedicated to finding and donating spare books for inmate libraries.

Now, it's an initiative that takes hours of manpower to move thousands and thousands of books to the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

“If I were in prison, the one thing I would want is a lot of reading material. Plus, I've never heard of someone trying to escape prison while reading,” jokes Chastain. “All of us academic types have books that just sit around, but they could be read by someone else. Books have done a lot for me and they still do. I hope they can do the same for someone else.”

He began the project by collecting dozens of books from professors, associates and even trash cans to give to female inmates. Typically, his shipments were small in size; a few novels or a box of books once a week.

"I made sure certain things went to the women,” says Chastain. “The pregnancy books and romance novels were a big hit, so I kept an eye out for those.”

But soon Chastain began to make more contacts and developed an email list-serv of individuals who were donation-crazy when it came to books. Now, offers pour in from closing libraries and anonymous donors.

“Last week, a woman retired from bookstore. She has 15,000 books that she wants me to donate to the DOC,” he says.

So far, Chastain estimates that he has helped more than 30,000 books find their way to inmates. Now, he does so with the help of a DOC library aid. Additionally, inmate crews are recruited to transport the books. Two weeks ago, the ARDOC organized a book pick-up for 8,000 novels.

“Many of our inmates have read every book in the library,” says ARDOC Librarian Administrator Dennice Alexander. “Once you're incarcerated for a long time, you've read the same books two or three times. They love new material. Right now, we're getting a larger population of Latin American folks, so we're focusing on Spanish books.”

Currently, 16 libraries have been established at the ARDOC's facilities. Some of these offender libraries have been around for a long time, while other programs are just getting started. So despite Chastain's efforts, there is still a high demand for new novels and books.

Obviously, not every book is fit for an inmate. Chastain refrains from sending along anything pornographic in nature, and any books that might leave the DOC susceptible to law suits.

“You're not allowed to provide inmates with out of date legal references,” Chastain explains. “So we definitely keep an eye out for that.”

For those in corrections who might want to jumpstart a similar program, Chastain and Alexander have a few pointers.

First, survey your inmates to find out their favorite subject matters and authors. According to Alexander, many of the Arkansas inmates like to read biographies and autobiographies, as well as self-help books.

Second, make sure to have a backup plan for donated books the DOC cannot use.

“We donate the books we can't use to Goodwill,” Alexander says. “I'd definitely recommend that to other organizations considering a similar program.”

As for Chastain, he favors such authors as Dostoyevsky. He admits that he's quite a book fiend himself, and says the novels he loves most allow him to travel the world without leaving the state, like Don Quixote.

“In a perfect world, I'd run a bookstore on one end and a pizza parlor on the other end,” Chastain says. “I'm a simple man with simple needs.”

When it comes to explaining the motivation behind starting the book donation program, Chastain chalks it up to compassion.

“What else is there, other than helping people?” he asks. “There are lots of ways to help people. You can become a plumber or a computer tech. But I've seen lots of people in prison, and I bet everyone else has too, and you say ‘That could have been me.' It's awful to waste humanity.”