The Occupy Wall Street People's Library

October 9, 2011 7:39 AM

The Occupy Wall Street People's Library
The People’s Library is the collective, public, open library of the Occupy Wall Street leaderless resistance movement. Located in the northeast corner of Liberty Plaza, the library provides free, open and unrestricted access to our collection of books, magazines, newspapers, ‘zines, pamphlets and other materials that have been donated, collected, gathered and discovered during the occupation. The working group for the library, which is composed of all those engaging with the library on any level, conduct all of our business through the web site in order to keep the library open, democratic and transparent.

Role: Co-Volunteer Librarian, Co-Organizer, created Web site

posted by jardinier (8 comments total)

I donated some books and a board game.

Monopoly, of course.
posted by The Whelk at 4:38 PM on October 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

(also Tim Fucking Kreider was there helping out today)
posted by The Whelk at 4:39 PM on October 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks Whelk, I saw that! We have one chess board and it's always checked out as well. And we also have anti-monopoly.
posted by jardinier at 10:26 AM on October 12, 2011

If that movie was at all accurate, I'm betting there are more chessboards over at Washington Square.

... you lucky ducks ...
posted by Twang at 8:19 PM on October 12, 2011

Sent you some Howl, Notes from Underground, & a Winnie the Pooh chaser. Also, snacks to eat and a tarp to read under if its raining.
posted by princessmonster at 9:45 AM on October 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thanks princessmonster!

We are entirely made up of donations from folks like you, so we really appreciate it. We do get some from the authors as well - Naomi Klein and Katrina vanden Heuvel have been especially good about keeping us stocked in their books. And one published just sent us over 1,000 books, basically everything they publish on finance and economics. We're still trying to figure out what to do with it all.

We're also starting to hear from other occupations that are creating libraries - many already have them. So, for those not in NYC, check your local occupation - they undoubtedly need more books and water-tight plastic bins to keep them in.
posted by jardinier at 10:41 AM on October 17, 2011

As an archivist, I was just curious if there are any archivists on the ground documenting the protest by getting copies of any handouts, pictures etc.? Sadly not in a position to do it myself (not in NY) but I was wondering if any local historical societies or university special collections people were documenting and preserving this momentous movement.
posted by kaybdc at 8:26 AM on October 21, 2011

Hey Kaybdc: There is an archive working group. We do some work with them, but they're an autonomous group. You can get in touch with them here (http://www.nycga.net/groups/the-occupy-wallstreet-archives/)
posted by jardinier at 8:32 AM on November 18, 2011