Berkeley students occupy anthropology library

Students at the University of California at Berkeley are rallying to save the anthropology library, and are now occupying the library full time to do so, The New York Times reported.

The university plans to close the library and to move its holdings to storage or another larger library.

The fight is “about fundamentally writing a different story about what education is, what the university is for,” said Jesús Gutiérrez, a graduate student who works at the library and is writing a dissertation about folk art forms of the African diaspora.

Berkeley administrators say that they can’t afford small, departmental libraries. “We are aware of the protest and are monitoring the situation,” the university said in a statement. “Regarding the anthropology library’s closure, we, too, wish the library could remain open, but that is not an option at this point.”