OWS People's Library to Address Post-Raid Loss and Destruction of Books
The Occupy Wall Street library will hold a press conference today at 12 p.m. to address the destruction of its collection during the Zuccotti raid and its inability to find many of the lost materials at the Sanitation building where confiscated OWS stuff has been stored. The presser will be on the 20th floor of 260 Madison Avenue. The damaged books that have been recovered will be shown for photo op purposes. 
Library spokesman William Scott told us that "every destroyed book that we have" -- about 500 or so -- will be on display.
Scott said that only about one quarter of the original collection is still usable after the raid. About 2,900 books are unaccounted for and the library got back 1,099 books from the Department of Sanitation, according to the OWS library's numbers.
"We're making demands to the city asking them for compensation, to acknowledge that what they did was wrong and promise they won't do it again," Scott told the Voice.
Former NYCLU director Norman Siegel is hosting and moderating the presser, which will include reps from the National Lawyers Guild and librarians from the OWS library.
Update 12:23 p.m.: The Voice's Nick Pinto is there and just sent us this shot of a damaged book. More from him later.
Nick Pinto
[rgray@villagevoice.com] [@_rosiegray]
Go to Runnin' Scared for more Voice news coverage.
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