[5][6] In April 2013, the Government of New York City was ordered to pay $366,700 for the raid, which was found to have violated the protesters' First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

[3][8][9] A weather event then resulted in the loss of the collection, which prompted Betsy Fagin to bring the idea of an official library before the movement's General Assembly a few weeks later.

Working groups within OWS were divided over how to respond, however, a decision was made for people to stay, but for infrastructure and possessions to be moved to safety.

[3] The library had 9,500 books cataloged in LibraryThing as of November 2012, and its collection was described as including some rare or unique articles of historical interest that originated as a result of the Occupy protests.

"[13][14] During the early morning of November 15, 2011, city workers from the Police Department and Sanitation Department forcibly evicted everyone in the park at that time and loaded their property and the 5,500+ book collection into garbage trucks, after a decision by city officials and park owners Brookfield Office Properties using "public health and environmental issues" as justification.

[1] New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg stated that the library's collection was safely stored at the sanitation garage on 57th Street, and that it could be retrieved on the following Wednesday.

[citation needed] One such example included What Work Is, which was signed and donated in person by United States Poet Laureate Philip Levine hours before its destruction when the park was cleared.

"[21] Editors at 2600: The Hacker Quarterly mourned the loss of the library's donated electronics and computer equipment, which they believed to have been destroyed by a blunt object.

[2] The library started a third collection with 100 replacement books, which were subsequently surrounded by police and confiscated by sanitation workers on the night of November 16, 2011.

[3][14] It offered weekly poetry readings on Friday nights, provided a reference service that was frequently staffed by professional librarians, and could attempt to procure materials not held by the People's Library.