An unusually biting arctic cold snap sweeps through Cincinnati, a southwestern Ohio city in the United States. The public library, equally open to everyone in the city, becomes a temporary refuge for the homeless and street wanderers to keep warm. Originally, the director of the public library condoned this behavior. But on that unusually extreme night, the library director's state of mind also changed.... What was originally just a group of street people temporarily needing a place to shelter from the cold turned into a civil movement occupying the library by mistake.