Yesterday I posted about some of the most beautiful
libraries in the world. One of the books
on Schatje’s Shelves, The Most Beautiful
Libraries in the World, includes The Library of Congress in Washington,
DC. That library made news recently for
more than its beauty: a new librarian
was appointed.
Dr. Carla D. Hayden was appointed to that position by
President Barack Obama. At 64, she is
the first African-American and the first woman to lead the 216-year-old
library, one of the world’s largest, and the U.S.’s leading repository of
knowledge and culture. The Library of
Congress has a collection of more than 162 million items, 3,100 employees, and
an annual budget of close to $650 million.
Dr. Hayden has a reputation as a fierce advocate for her
patrons and employees. In 2003 and 2004,
while serving as president of the American Library Association, Dr. Hayden
clashed frequently with Attorney General John Ashcroft over what she perceived
as privacy overreaches in the USA Patriot Act.
More recently, Dr. Hayden made the news in April 2015 when
she was Baltimore’s chief librarian.
Freddie Gray died after being injured in police custody and Baltimore
erupted in violence. Though the governor
of Maryland declared a state of emergency, Dr. Hayden and her staff kept the
library open.
For Dr. Hayden, the unrest was the test that clarified her
values: Libraries are about far more
than books. “The people of that
neighborhood protected that library,” Dr. Hayden said. “There were young men who stood outside. It
was such a symbol” (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/us/librarian-of-congress-carla-hayden.html?_r=0).
The New Yorker had an interesting story about Dr.
Hayden: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/carla-hayden-takes-charge-of-the-worlds-largest-library.
Since more than 80% of librarians are women, it’s about time
a woman was appointed to this position.
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