Another People’s Library under assault

Activists in Oakland opened a People’s Library yesterday…

Oakland Activists Take Over Derelict Library Building by Andrew Stelzer | August 13, 2012 — 8:38 PM

Neighborhood activists are occupying an abandoned library building in East Oakland … and opening the doors on a grassroots “people’s library.”

Volunteers sorted book donations Monday while children made welcome signs and mopped the floor of the building just off International Boulevard and 23rd Avenue. Organizers dubbed it the “Victor Martinez Peoples’ Library,” in honor of the late Bay Area writer, author of Parrot in the Oven.

Activist Jaime Silva says the city has talked of rehabilitating the library twice in the last decade but has done nothing. The derelict 1918 library remains an eyesore, he said.

…and today, this happened

More images are available here. For updates follow @BibliotecaPopul on Twitter.

Updates

Oakland police shut down ‘people’s library’ installed in vacant building

Biblioteca Victor Martinez in East Oakland (Video)

Victor Martinez People’s Library Open

Abandoned library occupied in Oakland

Occupying Oakland: “It’s Supposed to Be a Library, Not a Dump!”

Response from Librarians

On Oakland’s people’s library