In the News

Latest Updates

Jan 15, 2012: We are now in a new location at 900 Harris Street. Books may be brought there. Please call ahead as someone is not always there.

Listen to a radio interview with Kay Allison about the Books Behind Bars program. The interview was conducted on on July 28, 2008 for Virginia Insights, WMRA Charlottesville. (50MB mp3 file)

We are now accepting donation of children’s books for the visiting room of the prisons.

Also, this website has a new section: Letters to the Quest Institute.

Book Donations

Book Donations may be brought to:

Quest Institute, Inc.
619 W. Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22903

10-5:30 Mon-Sat
1-5 Sun

Frequently Requested Books

» Dictionary and Thesaurus

» Bible, Koran, spiritual material

» Small business start-up

» G.E.D. preparation

» Electrical, welding, plumbing, carpentry and other trade skills.

» Computer programming and web-design

» African-American authors

» Textbooks

» Medical / Health / Nutrition / Fitness

(Foreign language books are not permitted)

Photo Gallery of our Market Street Location

Message from Kay, July 2011: Due to mounting health concerns over the current location, we are in immediate need of a new place to move our books. If anyone can provide space to store our books, please contact us as soon as possible: (434) 295-3377 or questka@mindspring.com — Thank you.

These are photos of our previous book storage facility. We are now urgently looking for another space.

Numerous boxes of book are lined up on the floor ready to be picked up for shipping to prisons across the state. You can also see a table of letters sent by prisoners requesting material on certain subjects.

Click on thumbnails for a larger view.

Boxes of books being picked up for shipping. Letter book requests from prisoners being fulfilled. View of book storage facility on Market Street. Donated books sorted by category. Boxes being picked up by UPS. View of book storage facility on Market Street.