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This article briefly describes the situation in Brazil in regard to education, literacy, and the prison system. The author informs about the efforts of a group of library professionals to establish library services and promote literacy in two prisons in Rio de Janeiro. The project, Establishment of Libraries in Penitentiaries and other Institutions in the Correctional System of the State of Rio de Janeiro, is sponsored jointly by IFLA's Advancement of Librarianship (ALP) Core Activity and the Section on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The group is proceding in accordance with mandates of the Law of Penal Executions (LEP), Brazilian Federal Law no. 7.210/1984. The project objectives are also based on the 1995 IFLA publication Guidelines for Library Services to Prisoners and its premise that "…[t]here is widespread evidence from different countries that books and reading play a positive role in the lives of prisoners, even though many have limited education and life skills and do not come from a background where reading was very popular…" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]