Library Your Way Around Town, Part 3
Unless you’ve been intentionally living in deep seclusion over these past months, you have heard of this thing called Occupy Wall Street. (If you have not heard of this, please let me know how you have been able to accomplish this level of seclusion. I’ve got finals coming up…) So assuming you have heard of OWS and its various counterparts around the country and the world, you may have also heard of the occupation libraries that have formed at these sites.
Well, in relatively recent news, the raid on Zuccotti Park in mid-November has resulted in the destruction of thousands of books from the OWS library. The Mayor’s Office originally tweeted shortly after the raid that the books were “safely stored” and could be reclaimed. Apparently, this only accounted for some of the books.
Rather than offer my own superfluous opinions, you can follow some of the (fairly biased) reporting through the following articles. Please let me know what you think.
I’m so glad someone wrote about this. The ALA issued a feisty statement about it, which lives here: http://ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pr.cfm?id=8568
and here is a quote from it:
“The dissolution of a library is unacceptable. Libraries serve as the cornerstone of our democracy and must be safeguarded. An informed public constitutes the very foundation of a democracy, and libraries ensure that everyone has free access to information.
“The very existence of the People’s Library demonstrates that libraries are an organic part of all communities. Libraries serve the needs of community members and preserve the record of community history. In the case of the People’s Library, this included irreplaceable records and material related to the occupation movement and the temporary community that it represented.
“We support the librarians and volunteers of the Library Working Group as they re-establish the People’s Library.”
Thanks, Anne. I meant to include this link in the original post, but must have been distracted in my (failed) attempt to find some traditionally more conservative sources.