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Determined to be relevant, my town library is ripping out its excessively gendered women’s and men’s rooms to make way for four gender-neutral bathrooms. The renovation concretizes the American Library Association’s endorsement of gender ideology. Measured by the ALA’s Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services, relevant means assisting “traditionally underserved” communities.Among those neglected, the ALA cites “GLBT populations,” an improbable capitulation to identity politics. The ALA has decided that a sexually fungible—also militant, well-funded, and politically savvy—fragment of the public needs more material about itself. In accord with a service model, selections must be supportive, even flattering. They...

The Center still has a series of approval steps to go through, including a federal review, but has also faced a lawsuit by Protect Our Parks, which alleged that the city was engaging in a “short con shell game” to get the 12-story museum and library built on parkland. The lawsuit argued that while the purpose of transferring the land was to house the official Obama presidential library, the center will not include his presidential papers, only a digital copy. "Defendants have chosen to deal with it in a classic Chicago political way, known as a short con shell game,...

CHICAGO — Last month, when hundreds of people showed up at a downtown convention center to hear plans for the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), a campus dedicated to the legacy of Barack Obama, the former president himself arrived unannounced and in full campaign mode to do some hard selling. “This could anchor a transformation of the South Side to create more jobs, more business opportunities, more educational opportunities, more hope. This is our gift. This is us wanting to give back,” he said. But while Obama is embraced in his home town, the OPC has become a flash point for...

A panel of national and local experts, comprised mostly of African-Americans, lambasted Chicago city officials in a meeting Wednesday night for how they have worked closely with the Obama Foundation to build the Obama Presidential Center on public land despite criticism and serious concerns from representatives of the South Side neighborhood. "You have all this talk about collusion between Trump and Russia, right? To me, that sounds like collusion between the city and the university, and we see the same thing happening in relation to this," one of the panelists, Jawanza Malone, executive director of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, said....

The Austin Justice Coalition is asking community members to donate copies from a specific list of fiction and nonfiction titles to the Carver Branch of the library system. The city came up with the list of 126 works at the group’s request, and the donations will expand Carver’s collection. “For me, even if we get two books, it’s better than nothing,” said Ishia Lynette, AJC’s social media and community service director. She’s organizing the Black Literature Matters donation event Monday as part of the organization’s Black Unity Week. Carver already has a piece of its collection dedicated to African American...

The Obama Foundation released plans last week for the presidential center it plans to build in Chicago's Jackson Park, but behind the scenes, a battle is taking place to keep the former Democratic president from building on that specific plot of land, and there's still a chance that it gets delayed when it seeks federal approval. What initially started out as a library has morphed into a 20-acre private "center," and some environmentalists and historians are unhappy with the Obama Foundation's plans to swoop in and take over a national historic place.

In a significant victory for neighborhood and park advocacy groups, the Obama Foundation announced on Monday that a controversial proposed above-ground garage on the Midway Plaisance will be located under the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park. The foundation move to bury the garage in the complex comes as opposition to aspects of the development on historic park land is getting more organized – and as crucial city and federal approvals are needed. That’s coming as a federal review to discover “adverse effects” of the project is ongoing and may well prove tougher than expected because the federal players are...

Barack Obama may be the pride of University of Chicago, but a lot of heavy hitters there are strongly opposing current plans for his library. More than 100 U of C faculty members who say they support the location of an Obama Center near the campus nevertheless are opposing plans for it on economic and preservation grounds. They say the center’s proposed location lacks room to jump-start economic development, and its footprint will consume parts of historic Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance. “Not only are public lands being given to a private entity but the public will pay to...

The federal government has invited comments on “adverse effects” the Obama Presidential Center may have on Jackson Park and a leading landscape advocacy group has big ones: the planned iconic high-rise tower... and not taking into account the historic Frederick Law Olmsted designs for the related Midway Plaisance and Washington Park. Olmsted’s design “was intended to lead visitors on a choreographed journey through passages of landscape scenery. Neither the location nor the disposition of the roads were accidental,” wrote Charles Birnbaum, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation in a submission for the federal review. These South...

Barack Obama’s Obama Presidential Center, a three-building complex designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien on Chicago’s South Side, has made its intention to embrace its neighborhood very clear—specifically Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance, the historic Frederick Law Olmsted–designed greenways that have hosted, among other things, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, a.k.a. the “White City.” But what the Center hasn’t made as clear is that the complex’s footprint is growing, with its leaders recently proposing an aboveground parking garage that could take up about five acres of the Midway. The library’s concession for eating into this space is a...

Looks like Barack Obama is going to have to learn to live with disappointment. He has prepared for his presidential library for years. It’s part of his legacy. When Obama was elected, Chicago treated him literally as if he was the second coming of Christ. He was their favorite son. Nine years later, not so much. They are beginning to see the real Barack Obama at long last. The citizens of Chicago are balking at the plans for Obama’s library. In its initial bid for the right to host the library, put forth on behalf of the city, the University...

San Francisco public library officials say they have tried just about everything they could think of to track down long overdue books. At the start of the year, they even offered a six-week amnesty period for patrons to return long overdue books and settle up their fines. More than 10,000 patrons took advantage of the amnesty — returning 699,563 borrowed materials. Another $329,797 in penalties was forgiven. But currently, officials told the San Francisco Examiner, there are still 13,000 patrons who owe more than $100 in fines So library officials are turning to the city’s official bill collectors — the...

'It was one of the best experiences I've been given' The Michelle Obama public library in Long Beach, California, has presented to children who are part of its young readers program a huge array of diversity and “inclusion” agendas. In one shot. It was when Xochi Mochi arrived for a visit. That made the program pro-LGBTQ. And transgender. And drag queen-friendly. And Satanist-approved, with the character’s red-tipped, demon-like horns. All to read to children for LGBTQ History Month. The following is a video of another such event, this one in New York. It happened at the Obama library for the...

The Alvar Library in the Bywater will reopen Saturday (Oct. 21), four days after a guard was shot in the back by an unknown assailant while working a security detail outside the building. The 60-year-old security guard has undergone surgery and is "expected to eventually make a full recovery," according to the New Orleans Public Library. "We are extremely grateful for the support and encouragement we've received from the community during this difficult period and are very thankful for the work that NOPD is doing on our behalf," a statement from the library system says.

Park advisory councils on the South Side released statements Thursday to air their concerns about the Obama Presidential Center coming to Jackson Park, joining an outpouring of community calls for transparency and collaboration as the Obama Foundation begins to finalize plans. The Midway Plaisance Advisory Council met Wednesday night to draft a resolution that strongly opposed the seizure of the land for a two story parking garage and bus staging area. They also asked for no action on the land without a renewed framework for the land by the Chicago Park District; and the consideration of all communities, and people...

The Fox News headline sums up the issue at hand: "No Obama documents in Obama library? Historians puzzled by Chicago center plans." The article continues, "The Obama Foundation is taking an unconventional approach to the presidential center and library being planned in Chicago. It's opting to host a digital archive of President Barack Obama's records, but not keep his hard-copy manuscripts and letters and other documents onsite." The Chicago Tribune broke the story that, to this point, has attracted no major media attention. Its headline raises much the same question Fox News did: "Without archives on site, how will Obama...

Earlier this week John touched on the festival of hot takes surrounding Liz Phipps Soeiro, the librarian at Cambridgeport Elementary School who attempted to refuse a donation of Dr. Seuss books from First Lady Melania Trump. I specify “attempted” because it turned out that the school board stepped in and said it wasn’t her call to begin with. That hot mess should have come and gone fairly quickly, but it turns out that there was another chapter of the story to be written.The Mayor of the town where Dr. Seuss (actually Theodor Geisel) was born decided to add some balance...

Earlier this month First Lady Melania Trump celebrated National Read a Book Day by selecting some children’s books and sending them to one school in each state. Mrs. Trump selected Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go! because it was, “one of her personal favorites that she and her son have read together over and over.” Other books included in the shipment to schools in each state included One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Green Eggs and Ham among several others. Tuesday, the librarian at Cambridgeport Elementary School in Massachusetts wrote a response which informed the...

About 300 residents packed a South Side auditorium Wednesday night to demand that the promise of jobs, economic development and other benefits of the Obama presidential library center be put in writing. The activists and residents want a community benefits agreement, something many say will protect the neighborhoods and people the center may displace. Last week, at the foundation’s community meeting, President Barack Obama himself told residents that he would not sign a benefits agreement, which would put into writing the promises the foundation has made thus far on bringing jobs, economic development and resources to the South Side.

WOODLAWN — The Obama Foundation is asking the four construction teams vying to build the presidential center to set high standards for local and minority hiring. The foundation announced four finalists Thursday morning and also the standards for hiring the foundation is setting for each. Each of the firms has to lay out how it would meet a commitment to awarding half of its subcontracts to “diverse suppliers,” which expands the normal definition of firms from women and minority-owned firms to also include veteran-, disabled- or LGBTQ-owned firms. As the definition of inclusive hiring is broadened, the foundation is specifying...