Occupy the Library
by zunguzungu
I spent the early evening yesterday at the Berkeley anthropology library, which was officially to close at 5 p.m. It did not, because Occupy Cal occupied it — after a resolution taken three days ago — and because a healthy squad of Anthropology professors organized themselves to be present in shifts, all night, and negotiated with the Administration to obviate the “necessity” of sending police to kick the students out. At 4:45, a work-study student announced that the library would be closing in fifteen minutes — to general approval — and then, at 5, he declared the “The Library is Now Closed!” A hearty round of applause and finger-snapping greeted this bit of cognitive dissonance from the 80 or so students still in the (small) library, and he smiled broadly.
The library did not close, and the students are still there this morning. Occupy Cal held a general assembly on one side of the space to discuss what to do next — which eventually reached the decision to vote on whether to take a decision now or later, and produced a perfect tie — and that eventually evolved into an interesting discussion between students and Anthropology faculty on what the role of faculty should be. I assume they’re still there. At some point last night a working group produced this statement on their occupation, which I reproduce in its entirety:
We love our libraries and are here to protect them. Libraries are critically important for excellent education for all. We students, faculty, and community members collectively have decided to occupy the Anthropology Library at UC Berkeley to protest the dismantling of the library system on campus and public education as a whole.
We chose to occupy this space because the Anthropology library is a recent victim of extreme service cuts. The hours of operation are being cut from the previous, already slim, 9am-6pm to the current 12pm-5pm, because the university has not taken the necessary steps to sufficiently staff the library. The multiple attacks on campus libraries are a reflection of privatization and the devaluation of the public education system.
We are here to reverse this process. We call on the administration to take immediate action to hire another full-time librarian to ensure full access to this valuable resource.
The administration may claim that there are insufficient funds, but in reality these resources exist, but their allocation by UC administrators and the state does not adequately reflect the values of excellent public education. Why have the UC Regents continued to approve 21% increases in administration salaries, while students are being denied access to their libraries? Why are the taxes of the 1% so low while essential social services are being cut across the state and country?
We stand in solidarity with the Occupy movement as a whole and the protestors at UC Riverside who were met with violence in their attempt to protest the austerity policies of the UC Regents, Sacramento, and Washington D.C.
Defend our libraries and schools. Occupy together.
— The Anthropology Library Occupation
January 19, 2012
Was this a symbolic protest? Was this a “real” occupation? What was accomplished? Was it a success? Perhaps the real measure of this particular occupation’s potency is that none of these questions are answerable. There was a tent, and by the looks of it, someone was going to sleep inside of it. It is unclear whether this will be an ongoing occupation, or whether this was the first shot in a drawn out library campaign; much discussion last night centered on whether to make the anthropology library a focused encampment, ongoing, or to regularize a kind of roving library occupation in a different library each week. The problem is university-wide; as administrative salaries continue to bloat, library staff have been cut to the bone, to such an extent that when a single staff person took another job in December — as was explained last night — the Anthropology library had to cut its hours from 9-6 to 12 -5. But the severity of the Anthropology library’s situation is mirrored across campus, by design, where the administration is using natural attrition to cut personel, waiting for staff to leave and then declining to replace them. It’s the same story as everywhere else on campus, but as worthy a place as any other to fight encroaching neoliberalization of the campus. And there’s precedent; two years ago, Cal student protesters liberated this very library, in protest against the same kinds of cutbacks, and eventually got the funding replaced. And in many respects (as the organizers of that action have pointed out to me), that’s where the language of “Occupy [place]” first came from, albeit building on a long tradition of occupations elsewhere. However modest a victory it may have been — and may be — big things come from small places, and this semester is till young.
At the general assembly three days ago, a student spoke out in favor of the library occupation (one of the students who brought the initial proposal, I believe), by comparing it with Occupy Oakland’s upcoming occupation of a large building space — scheduled for the 28th of January — and argued that Occupy Cal would be part of setting a new trend in turning towards occupying buildings. We’ll see about that; Occupy Oakland’s plan “to occupy a large, vacant building and convert it into a social center,” will almost certainly be met with massive police violence, since occupying buildings has been a clear red line for local municipalities so far, and OPD has already established how they will respond to such things. Lots of occupiers have talked about turning away from occupying public spaces towards reclaiming buildings and houses (foreclosed and otherwise), but it’s still unclear to me how that will work, if it does; we’ll see what happens on the 28th. Occupy Oakland has a schedule of events posted for the 29th, but that feels a bit like a “the boys will be home by Christmas!” kind of optimism to me; I hope they will, but I’m not holding my breath either.
Occupy Cal’s library action is much more modest, of course, and by general consensus is meant to keep the library open for those who would normally use it, effectively by substituting Anthropology faculty volunteers for library staff. During the new “normal” operating hours, the library will operate as usual; only during the “liberated hours” will you see scenes like this (from BAMN’s post on the event):
I’d say about a dozen students were really studying the whole time I was there, but that’s also a not-inconsiderable number; it was a symbolic protest in one way — since most of the occupiers were not using the library as a library is normally used — but an impressive number actually were; the library is divided into two natural sections, and while one was filled with political discussion, general assemblying, and s forth, the other was filled with quiet students quietly working.
The library action was peaceful, though, at least in part because of its modest size and faculty intervention. In UC Riverside yesterday, student protesters were presented with the usual UC police violence, and we’ll see that again at Berkeley, I predict; the administration doesn’t like pictures of its police beating students, but it likes student protesters even less. Last night, though, there was none of that. The administration sent the chair of the Anthropology department a statement to read to the students, trying to make clear that the only reason they weren’t being subject to the usual police violence was the “supervisory” presence of the Anthro faculty, who are, in all likelihood, not going to be there forever (nor, some students argued, should they, except as protesters themselves). And so it will be interesting to see what the faculty do next, if they quietly recede into a non-presence as they have before.
Maybe they won’t, but we’ll see. These faculty were roundly thanked for their presences — and their mobilization was both quick and impressive — but their presences as “supervisory adults” was also not exactly in perfect harmony with the spirit of the action, and won’t be sustainable in the long term anyway. No actual administrators would come to read the administration statement themselves, after all — though they did send several completely conspicuous spies to observe and report on what was happening (conspicuous by their cloud of contempt and refusal to communicate with people round hem) — so Anthro faculty had to speak for the administration, an arrangement the administration no doubt enjoys. Act Two of this will be telling. As of now, though, nothing is happening… nothing except students occupying a library, reading, and being students.
UPDATE (Saturday, 1/21): via, the Kroeber Study-In Resolution declares:
Whereas, The George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library hours were cut this semester by close to 50%; and
Whereas, a policy of attrition is eroding all of our libraries and other vital student services; and
Whereas, the loss of resources and services has a detrimental effect on educational opportunities for students at this campus; and
Whereas, the University’s stated mission “is to serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits through transmitting advanced knowledge, discovering new knowledge, and functioning as an active working repository of organized knowledge;” and, finally
Whereas, the University cannot fulfill this mission, or maintain its status as a premier learning environment, without the full functioning of, and access to, its exceptional libraries as they are pivotal in providing space for the sharing of knowledge and the free exchange of ideas; and
Be it resolved, we demand the restoration of the Anthropology Library hours to their Fall 2011 schedule; and
Be it further resolved, that we demand the proper staffing, funding, and foresight in order to maintain full operational capacity of all campus libraries; and
Be it finally resolved, that while you remain unwilling to maintain the normal operations of our library, we will keep the Anthropology Library open until our demands are met.
“As of now, though, nothing is happening… nothing except students occupying a library, reading, and being students.”
In other words, this whole “Occupy” thing isn’t going anywhere. I was an early supporter, but now it’s looking more and more like an exercise in narcissism.
You’ve lost me. How is this narcissism? The action was an attempt to keep the library open so students could use it, a protest against the university’s budgeting priorities (which refuses to pay for library staff but has plenty of money for bloated admin salaries). They occupied the library, and kept it open, and then studied in it.
Where is it that you think “this ‘Occupy’ thing” *should* be going?
yeah that makes no sense. If people are protesting the library being closed and unusable. Then keeping it open and using it……
If the purpose of Occupy is to ultimately remove the 1% from control of the essential functions and institutions of our society and return control to the people, then just occupying targets of that control, even symbolically or momentarily is useful. I don’t see that as “narcissistic” at all. Just the presence of Occupy in its parks, in front of 1% facilities and at at-risk public services and facilities is a powerful tool. It is the 99% we must first make aware – not some instant success that backs off the 1%. That kind of success ain’t going to happen, not for some time.
After more than a couple decades spent as a full time activist, i remain impressed at how SOMETIMES, a well organized, relatively small group of people can make an actual improvement in a specific situation in the real world.
This occupation is a good example. The fact that the powers-that-be knew that the larger grievances underlying the specific demands of the library occupiers are shared by many many others was probably a major factor. But sometimes even without that broader support, a not-large group of well organized folks can achieve a real world victory.
Even though these “small” victories are just a step toward a much larger goal, they do show that the common argument of “We can’t make a difference” shouldn’t be taken too literally
How does maintaining the facade of normality constitute a victory?
What you need to do is show the elites how dependent they are on you, not the other way around. Don’t beg them to keep the library open for a few more hours. Instead organise mass strikes among students and faculty. Conduct your own classes and seminars *off* campus. Organise your own libraries. Only then will you be in a position to make demands that will be taken seriously. You can’t just continue “being students” and think that is going to make a difference. There’s no going back to extended library opening hours, not under a regime that’s committed to privatizing every last inch of public space. It’s time to change what it means to be a student, or for a space to be a library. Use your imagination – that’s what people are waiting for.
The bloated salaries part is important, e.g., that there are resources to be moved around within the UC system that would be vastly better uses of those resources to meet the needs of students, communities, etc. that depend upon the UC system. And at the larger level, of course, resources to be moved around within state budgets and between state budgets and the 1% top incomes via better taxation regimes. But I think that somehow also cost containment, resource use, etc., have to be salvaged from the interests that presently deploy their rhetoric and taken on as progressive priorities in their own right. E.g., the answer to drives to consolidate or eliminate services can’t just be to restore everything as it was and live in a wax museum version of our institutions. Some resource constraints are both new and real in our present circumstances, and sometimes even a progressive needs to look at some configuration of services or expenditures and ask if there isn’t a better way to provide them or whether funding one existing service is denying someone else a more important potential service. Using resources responsibly IS progressive, and responsibly means taking questions of efficiency, utility, equity, etc., seriously and not just mocking them as corporate-speak.
Libraries are a really interesting case to consider of how to thread the needle. For completely legitimate reasons, even what I would view as progressive reasons, the character and functioning of academic libraries actually needs to change, though that by no means means simply or easily towards a reduction of services or staff. In trying to hold a line against a sort of neoliberal or corporatizing regime, it’s really crucial to not make it impossible to have a conversation about what the purpose of a library really is, about how to redesign and rethink libraries and their staffing to recognize majors shifts in the consumption and production of knowledge, and so on. At least some of those legitimate conversations might see consolidating or moving collections and staff (and hours of availability) as worth considering; others might ask, legitimately, if the specialized knowledge and training of librarians needs to shift or change.
And of course, some conversations might go in the direction that Andrew Montin sketches in his comment–but the underside of that thought is that if it’s possible to ‘organize our own libraries’ off of and outside of academia in a way that is not also an impoverishment or destruction of the central purposes of academic libraries then the cost-cutters are perfectly right: we don’t need libraries any more. If it is a serious impoverishment or wounding of student and faculty work to remove ‘library work’ from the space of a campus as a tactic of protest, then you have to wonder whether the bean-counters will care at all: it’s not inconveniencing them if we inconvenience ourselves.