Many thanks to Emily Pickard and James Ripley for this guest blog post.
Last Christmas, Edinburgh’s Oxgangs and Mobile libraries partnered with Saughton Library to deliver Secret Santa to HMP Edinburgh. The programme brought gift-wrapped library books to incarcerated individuals to combat loneliness.
Why Secret Santa?
The aim of this project was simple: extend kindness and empathy to isolated populations in hopes of inspiring kindness and empathy in turn. This goal complements Edinburgh libraries’ promotion of Empathy Lab’s Read for Empathy series and various wellness programming by extending provision to a vulnerable and unengaged community. This project uses the concept of Blind Date with a Book to reach a ‘hidden’ population with a goal to rehabilitate. The holidays are a challenging time of year among excluded and imprisoned populations, and by providing an opportunity to receive and open a ‘gift’, we hoped to spark joy, alleviate loneliness, and encourage empathy for one another. We strived to treat some of the root causes of mental illness and criminal behaviour: trauma, apathy, and isolation.
The focus is often on developing empathy in children, implying the mistaken belief that it’s ‘too late’ for most adults. This is in stark contrast to what research has revealed about human beings’ capacity for empathy. We know that a mere 10% of empathic skills are genetic and, contrary to popular belief, 98% of us can develop empathic skills at any point in our lives (Empathy Lab UK). We also know that study after study has shown direct correlation between reading fiction and improved empathy skills in adults and children alike. This foundational evidence, alongside the basic principles of bibliotherapy, informed our project. We grounded our Secret Santa programme in these principles to bolster empathy and compassion among the prison population to facilitate rehabilitation and offer them skills for release. This, we hope, will offer them a leg up in seeking employment as employers list emotional skills and teamwork as important as or more important than experience (Empathy Lab UK).
Further to this, we enabled a framework of reading as that which sparks family bonding. Family relationships have a significant impact on reducing rates of re-offending and generational incarceration. Not only does this happen through an increase in empathy, which then improves understanding for one another within a family unit, but reading also improves communication skills as well as emotional awareness for oneself and others, and offers conversational talking points to support family visitations and phone calls. Furthermore, we hope that by reframing reading as a positive, inclusive activity it will encourage active reading habits in the families and children of prisoners. This helps prevent generational incarceration.
How Did We Deliver?
The design of the programme insisted upon a unique partnership between three of the main branches of library provision in Edinburgh: prison, mobiles, and public. Saughton Library sent out registration cards to the entire prison population, including non-library users. Prisoners used these slips to register interest and select preferred genres. Saughton librarians informed the population that these books would be coming from public libraries, selected by public library assistants. This would mean a wider range of reading material, thereby greatly increasing the appeal of the programme. We also wanted to make known the connection to external public libraries to encourage registration upon release and to help the prisoners feel that they are being cared for, included, and considered.
Oxgangs and Mobile libraries teams then made selections based on participants’ requests. We were pleasantly surprised at the variation in genre requests as it disrupted our conception of prison reading trends, with a surprising number of participants requesting historical fiction, fantasy, and history texts. The books were tagged, added to the spreadsheet, and Mobile services then delivered these books, with pre-cut wrapping paper, to Saughton Library. There, the librarians finished processing and wrapping the books for delivery on 24th December. Each book contained a holiday card explaining the book choice from the library assistant who had selected it and a homemade bookmark with Christmas cracker jokes from the Saughton librarians. The project cost £20 in materials (recyclable wrapping paper and tape, and holiday cards).
Approximately 16% of HMP Edinburgh’s population registered for the programme. Of these, 15% were first-time borrowers to the library and 15% were on remand.
Spreading Cheer and Inclusion
Edinburgh Libraries are dedicated to wellness and inclusion and the Library Secret Santa programme was a natural evolution of this. Individuals in custody cannot research new authors or the next ‘big book’. We took this as an opportunity to introduce them to new and contemporary authors and we believe this broadening of their range to be key in inspiring a love of reading. Additionally, this welcomed prisoners into the wider Edinburgh community by allowing them to partake in shared reading trends. It further contributes to increased use of the prison library by promoting it as a space of learning, community, escapism, and inclusion.
As of February 2026, participating prisoners have started returning feedback forms, with mainly positive results. The act of opening the ‘gift’ has been listed as the highest appeal. Two examples in particular highlight the programme’s success in deepening prisoners’ bonds with their families and supporting their mental health. An individual who registered for the programme waited to open his ‘gift’ until 26th December, despite receiving it on 24th December. This surprised us, as it contradicted our initial concern that most would open their ‘gifts’ immediately upon receipt. When we asked why he waited, he explained that it was tradition in his family to unwrap gifts on Boxing Day. In this way, he was able to participate in his family’s traditions for the first time since his imprisonment. The second notable example is an individual who expressed that he only recently began reading, and thus far had relied on his sister’s recommendations. He enjoyed our selection for him and now has a book to recommend to her. It is significant that many individuals within HMP Edinburgh are long-term prisoners. For others, this was their first holiday season away from their families.
Other feedback included:
- ‘had something to read over xmas helped my mental health’
- ‘I hadn’t read it [the book] or anything by the author before. I liked the card with info + thoughts on the book a lot. It was sweet + simple.’
- ‘A new genre for a change, deeply engrossed in it.’
- ‘Thank you for the Christmas book. It was excellent the way you wrapped it and added a card. It gave me a bit of normality. It was hugely appreciated.’
A Team Bonding Exercise
What we found within our teams has garnered further optimism about the project’s success. Our team was able to engage in a unique opportunity for teamwork on a single cross-city project. Team members actively spoke to one another to offer advice, brainstorm options, and research authors and genres. The team took seriously the challenges of safe content, while choosing high-quality, good condition books that were often outside their personal reading preferences.
One team member expressed their enjoyment in selecting books that were not crime and romance as is the norm for programmes like Link, Housebound, and personal shoppers. Similarly, another team member expressed the joy they felt in researching authors outside their usual sphere of interest and have gone on to read some of the authors they discovered. Another felt it helped them feel the spirit of the holidays, and all expressed their gratitude for the team collaboration they felt in helping one another in their selections. Moreover, Oxgangs Library’s team grew a deeper understanding and appreciation of the work of the Mobile and Prison library services and expressed a stronger sense of collective goals.
In February 2026, this project was announced as a finalist for Library of the Year – Scotland (British Book Awards 2026). To date, all teams and participants are eagerly anticipating the 2026 holiday season when we hope to run the programme a second time.
Emily L. Pickard is the supervisor at Oxgangs Library, Edinburgh. She has a doctorate in Scottish Literature from the University of Glasgow with a focus on gender and labour inequality. The Secret Santa programme stemmed from her concern with mental health in vulnerable populations and her aim to boost empathy in adult communities. Pickard has published numerous scholarly and creative works. This is her first project with the prison library.
James Ripley (BA, BFA, MLIS, PhD) has been the Librarian at HMP Edinburgh (aka Saughton) for the past 4 years, but has 25+ years’ experience in academic, legal deposit, and special libraries. In addition, he is an Au’Oral Narrative scholar, a published poet, the editor of Diesel (the Saughton Poetry Journal), and a prolific Letterboxd reviewer.
