Carla Diane Hayden (born August 10, 1952) is an American librarian who is serving as the 14th librarian of Congress. Since the creation of the office of the librarian of Congress in 1802, Hayden is both the first African American and the first woman to hold this post. Appointed in 2016, she is the first professional librarian to hold the post since 1974.
Born in Tallahassee, Florida, Hayden began her career at the Chicago Public Library, and earned a doctorate in library science from the University of Chicago. From 1993 until 2016, she was the CEO of Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, and president of the American Library Association (ALA) from 2003 to 2004. During her presidency, she was the leading voice of the ALA in speaking out against provisions of the newly passed United States Patriot Act, which impacted public information services.
In 2020, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Early life
Hayden was born in Tallahassee, Florida, to Bruce Kennard Hayden Jr., at that time director of the String Department at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, and Colleen Hayden (), a social worker. Her parents met while attending Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. Hayden grew up in Queens, New York. When she was 10 years old, her parents divorced and she moved with her mother to Chicago, Illinois. She had a younger half-brother from her father's second marriage, Bruce Kennard Hayden, III, who died in 1992.
Hayden's mother's side of the family comes from Helena, Arkansas. Her father's maternal side of the family, who eventually settled in Du Quoin, Illinois, had been enslaved, which is chronicled in the book, It's Good to Be Black, by Ruby Berkley Goodwin.
Hayden said that her passion for reading was inspired by Marguerite de Angeli's Bright April, the 1946 book about a young African-American girl who was in the Brownies. At Chicago's South Shore High School, Hayden became interested in books on British history and "cozy mysteries". She attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois, and then transferred to Roosevelt University.
While she loved libraries she didn't consider it as a career until after she had graduated from Roosevelt University with majors in political science and African history in 1973. Hayden received her master's degree in Library Science in 1977, and a doctorate degree in Library Science in 1987, both from the University of Chicago Graduate Library School.
Career
Hayden began her library career at the Chicago Public Library telling stories to children with autism. From 1973 to 1979, she worked as an associate/children's librarian at the Whitney Young branch. From 1979 to 1982, she served as the young adult services coordinator. From 1982 to 1987, Hayden worked as a library services coordinator at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
Hayden moved to Pittsburgh, where she was an associate professor, teaching at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences from 1987 to 1991. At the time, well known African-American librarians, E. J. Josey and Spencer Shaw, were on the faculty there.
Hayden then moved back to Chicago and became Deputy Commissioner and Chief Librarian of the Chicago Public Library, posts she held from 1991 to 1993. During her time working at the Chicago Public Library, Hayden became acquainted with Michelle Obama and Barack Obama.
From 1993 to 2016, Hayden was executive director of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library.
In January 2010, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Hayden as a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board and National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities.
Enoch Pratt Free Library
On July 1, 1993, Hayden began the appointed position of Director at Enoch Pratt Free Library, the public library system in Baltimore, Maryland.
During her tenure, Hayden oversaw a library co-operative with 22 locations, hundreds of employees, and an annual budget of $40 million. She also oversaw the first new branch opening in 35 years along with the renovation of the co-operative's central branch, at a cost of $112 million. During the 2015 protests of the death of Freddie Gray, Hayden kept Baltimore's libraries open, an act for which she received extensive praise.
When interviewed by American Libraries Magazine during the Baltimore unrest in 2015 why she decided to keep the libraries open, Hayden replied,