Education: Is Hannibal Lecter in?: Sarah Strickland reports on a favourite serial killer at Wandsworth prison

Wandsworth prison's main library is a small, narrow room, with 8,000 books crammed into shelves down a central aisle and along the walls on either side. There is one rickety table and a couple of old chairs in a corner. At first glance it is hard to believe that this library has just won an award.

The library serves 500 prisoners on remand or in transit. Those who wish to use it must be escorted in groups of up to 30 at a time for a half- hour browse during the day. A new shift structure is making it harder to fit in visits: sometimes inmates must wait for weeks, so bookworms tend to take out the maximum of nine books at a time.

'We know we are not offering a perfect service,' said Colette Holloway, the senior librarian. 'The library is not in the right place and there are terrific problems with access. But we are in the process of changing things.'

The Community Initiative Award was presented to the prison largely in recognition of its tenacity. Graham Clark, the governor, describes the library as a triumph over adversity: 'Wandsworth prison is the last place on earth to put a library. It would be easier to establish one on a raft going up the Mississippi.'

Jan Barnett, head of Wandsworth Council's mobile library services team, established the prison's Escape with a Book project jointly at the prison and at the nearby Springfield psychiatric hospital, which shares the award and the pounds 5,000 prize.

Informal talks and events have encouraged more prisoners to use the library. One man who reluctantly attended a lecture on the Romans enjoyed it so much that he started ordering books on the subject, progressing on to the Greeks. 'Just that small opening to history has raised my curiosity about aspects of the past,' he said.

Bill Mumford, an inmate who assists with teaching literacy, said: 'When I'm reading a book I'm not in a 12 by 8 cell, I'm in that book. It's escapism. I work till 7pm and I still manage to read eight or nine books a week.'

Prisoners can put in requests for books that are not held or are already out on loan; these can be borrowed from other libraries or purchased. Five people are currently waiting for William Golding's Lord of the Flies, and an all-time favourite is Silence of the Lambs, of which the library has five copies.

The Home Office will be paying for improvements to the main library and more legal reference books for remand prisoners. This will bring its facilities nearer to the standard of the prison's second library, which caters for the 300 or so 'vulnerable prisoners', long-term inmates whose offences mean that they must be kept away from the others for their own protection.

Their library is far more welcoming, with plants, tables and chairs, and an adjoining classroom. They can visit the library unattended in their free time, every other evening, to read, chat or play board games.

This library moved in April from a tiny room where inmates were allowed 20 minutes browsing every fortnight. Within two months borrowing soared from around 470 books a month to 1,050.

Mick Inns, an inmate who helps runs this library and is studying French and photography, said: 'It's like a village here - there's always something going on. Working here has opened my eyes to the needs of others, and I'm learning all the time: I'm in college, not in prison.

'I never went to libraries on the outside, I had no idea what they had to offer.

'You can't match the isolation and silence of prison for reading and study. Here you can clear your mind and absorb knowledge.'