Dr. Carla Hayden

Dr. Carla Hayden is a senior fellow at the Mellon Foundation where she pursues scholarship, writing, and research projects. She also serves as a strategic partner and counsel, advising on opportunities to support and advance libraries, archives, and other organizations in the public knowledge ecosystem.  

Dr. Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016. She is the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library.  Her vision redefined and modernized the Library’s mission: to engage, inspire, and inform Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity. Through social media presence, events, and activities, she introduced new audiences to the Library’s treasures–from Frederick Douglass’ papers, to the contents of President Lincoln’s pockets on the night of his assassination, to James Madison’s crystal flute, made famous by Lizzo. By investing in information technology infrastructure and digitization, she enabled the American people to explore, discover, and engage with the trove of America’s stories maintained by the Library of Congress–even if they never visited the Library’s buildings.

With support from Mellon Foundation, Dr. Hayden launched the Of the People initiative, creating new opportunities for more Americans–especially Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other underrepresented communities of color–to engage with the Library and add their perspectives to the Library’s collections. The initiative invested in community-based documentarians; funded paid internships and fellowships to engage the next generation of diverse librarians, archivists, and knowledge workers; and invited underserved communities and institutions to create digital engagements with Library collections.

Dr. Hayden was president of the American Library Association and was the first African American to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, including an after-school center offering homework assistance and college and career counseling. Hayden received a BA from Roosevelt University and an MA and PhD from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. She is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.