Chicago this week. Photo credit: Frank James Johnson.

If you haven’t signed the petition for save historic DuSable High School’s librarian position, you still can. Over 1,000 have signed it in the last 24 hours.

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Retired LAUSD librarian Joan Kramer, a friend since my childhood, sent along this video that they made in 2010 as Los Angeles school libraries were being closed.

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Students at @bsi_panthers called the library their “sanctuary” and a “peaceful place” for when life or school became overwhelming

— Lauren FitzPatrick (@bylaurenfitz) December 11, 2015

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I actually wanted to begin on that theme by talking a bit about the inaccessibility of libraries, and I’m thinking about my own childhood, when I saw this incredible building in Birmingham, Alabama, made out of Indiana limestone. It was the Birmingham Public Library, but of course it was only for white peoples. The one black library that…