Solidarity Statement representing library workers across the Columbia University Libraries system
Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
— Library Bill of Rights, American Library Association (ALA)
The following is a statement by library workers in the Columbia University Libraries (CUL) system. We speak not as representatives of the system, but as individuals with common concerns grounded in our community membership and adherence to the values of librarianship. Library workers hold a range of opinions, emotions, and experiences. Recent events require us to speak in unison and with moral clarity.
As a collective of library workers within CUL, and members of the Columbia University community, we take seriously our role as stewards of knowledge. We are charged with encouraging critical thinking through the accessible provision of research materials and instructional tools for learning.
We are appalled by President Shafik's and the Columbia Board of Trustees’ deployment of public and private security entities on our campus. These actions stand in clear contradiction to all values espoused by academic institutions, impede us in serving the libraries' many communities, and undermine core library values of free thought, free expression, and right of access to information that we uphold in our daily work.
Student arrests and suspensions for protesting the University’s complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people directly contradicts the administration's stated desire to encourage "thoughtful, rigorous debate.” These actions highlight the University’s hypocrisy when it promotes itself using archival materials that document its past suppression of student dissent (http://tiny.cc/j5juxz). Current policing actions to quell dissent also contradict intellectual freedom as a central value of librarianship. University officials’ use of law enforcement on our campus and threats of State violence stand in the way of our commitment, grounded in ALA principles, to serving the public good of "creating informed, connected, educated, and empowered communities.”
As library workers, we oppose the escalated and violent suppression of speech, as well as increasing crackdowns on the free exchange of ideas—two pillars of our academic community that Columbia claims to uphold—that have come to define the 2023–2024 academic year. Locked campus gates, whether against our Harlem neighbors or members of our university community, are a disturbing symbol of the anti-democratic and anti-intellectual climate the current Columbia administration are attempting to make the new normal.
We endorse Columbia University Apartheid Divest’s six demands (https://cuad.org/).
We reject anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, anti-Black racism, anti-semitism, and Islamophobia. We reject the conflation of advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-semitism, as thoughtfully articulated by the April 10th Jewish faculty op-ed in the Columbia Spectator (http://tiny.cc/h7juxz).
We stand in solidarity with students, faculty, and staff seeking unfettered access to our libraries, archives, and special collections.
We bear witness and will continue to work to hold those in power accountable.
We invite colleagues across the Columbia University Libraries to affirm their support for this statement by signing onto this form: https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/yNLzKfb6AX81bByNgwicS3XEMy0FYQvbnRi8XPaZ9W0/
78 (and counting!) signatories as of 6 May 2024
Sources and further reading
American Library Association, “Core Values of Librarianship,” 21 January 2024, https://www.ala.org/advocacy/advocacy/intfreedom/corevalues.
Catlin, Samuel P. “The Campus Does Not Exist: How Campus War Is Made,” Parapraxis: https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/the-campus-does-not-exist.
Becher, Debbie, et. al. “Jewish faculty reject the weaponization of antisemitism,” Columbia Spectator, 10 April 2024, https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2024/04/10/jewish-faculty-reject-the-weaponization-of-antisemitism/
Columbia Law Fellows/Honorees in Support of pro-Palestine Students & Community Members, “Open Letter to Dean Lester, President Shafik, and the broader Columbia Law School and Columbia University community,” 18 April 2024, https://docs.google.com/document/d/16F6Vx8KaVDyMK7GRIOlgNS5l4nFlyUss2xjbIELNYQA/mobilebasic
Columbia University Libraries, “1968: Columbia in Crisis,” Online exhibition: https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/1968.
Librarians and Archivists with Palestine, “2023 Gaza Statement”: https://librarianswithpalestine.org/2023-statement-on-gaza/.
_______________. “Israeli Damage to Archives, Libraries, and Museums in Gaza,” October 2023 to January 2024”: https://librarianswithpalestine.org/gaza-report-2024/.
United Nations’ Human Rights Council, “Anatomy of a Genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese,” 55th Session, 26 February–5 April 2024: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5573-report-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-palestinian.