It took 85 nights of discomfort as rotating groups of students slept on the hard floor of the George and Mary Foster Anthropology Library they were determined to rescue. It’s what anthropologists do, like field work.
Then, to shout-outs from around the world, on July 15 the activist anthropologists posted their triumphant news on Instagram: “We successfully won.”
Instead of losing their entire treasured athenaeum, the anthropologists will get to keep the space and 40% of its books.
With a bonus, they wrote: “For the first time ever, community members can apply for free UC Berkeley library cards so that they can check out these books.”
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The library will remain open but “reimagined,” social sciences spokesperson Kenneth Ma said in a statement that referred to the “former anthropology library space.” He credited “students who advocated passionately for the preservation of the library in its current form.”
Ma said it will become a “reading room and space controlled by the Department of Anthropology.”
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
