Thank You, Dr. Carla Hayden

Librarian of Congress, 2016-2025

Book cover image: The Library of Congress by Jane Aiken (2025)

Infophilia, a Positive Psychology of information | May 10, 2025 | Vol. 3, Issue 22

✨Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter exploring how our love of information and connections can help us all thrive, individually and collectively.

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Update: After reading last week’s Infrastructure Literacy: understanding the Internet of Bodies, a reader asked about passkeys. Excellent point. Passkeys are increasingly being encouraged by many, as a strong authentication method; for example, Microsoft has officially announced that all new Microsoft accounts will be “passwordless by default.” Instead of passwords, new users will be encouraged, and in many cases required, to use passkeys or other authentication methods such as biometrics, PINs, or security keys when creating an account. As of now, no library (that I’m aware of) has adopted passkeys. If you know of any, please drop me a line. Thanks.

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Cite as: Coleman, Anita S. (2025, May 10). Thank you, Dr. Carla Hayden: Librarian of Congress, 2016-2025. Infophilia, a positive psychology of information, 3 (22).

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Thank You, Dr. Carla Hayden

Librarian of Congress, 2016-2025

Professional Stewardship in an Age of Change

Correction (05/10/2025, 12:08 pm Pacific Time): Dr. Hayden’s 1987 dissertation title is A Frontier of Librarianship: Services for Children in Museums not An Analysis of Public Library Services to Black Americans in the South, 1900–1955 as previously given.

When Dr. Carla Hayden was appointed Librarian of Congress in 2016 by President Obama for a ten-year term, I was very happy. I was thrilled not only because she was the first woman and the first African American to be appointed, but because for the first time in my memory, a professional librarian would lead one of the world's largest libraries. Historically, Librarians of Congress over the institution's 225-year history have predominantly been scholars and historians, not professional librarians. Dr. Hayden's appointment signified the critical importance of graduate library science credentials in the digital information age. With both an MA and a PhD (1987) in Library Science from the University of Chicago (her dissertation title: “A Frontier of Librarianship: Services for Children in Museums”), Dr. Hayden brought unparalleled qualifications to an institution greatly in need of modernization.

Dr. Hayden was also the first Librarian of Congress to serve under term limits; previous Librarians were appointed for life, explaining why there have been only 14 Librarians of Congress across more than two centuries. Now, I am deeply sad by Dr. Hayden's sudden dismissal before the completion of her appointed term. Library associations, professional librarians, academic faculty, literary figures, and politicians have voiced their support for Dr. Hayden and condemned this unexpected termination.

Coincidentally, I began the week excitedly reading The Library of Congress: From Jefferson’s Vision to the Digital Age by Jane Aiken, which had just been released on May 2 for the Library's 225th anniversary. Aiken's dissertation, The Library of Congress and the Professionalization of American Librarianship, 1896-1939 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1988), and her book, The Nation's Great Library: Herbert Putnam and the Library of Congress, 1899-1939 (University of Illinois Press, 1993), further highlight the significance of library history.

Many people believe that the Library of Congress (LC) is the official national library of the United States. The relatively recent adoption of the slogan "America's Library" helps perpetuate that impression. Legally, however, this country has no national library. Today, as in 1800 when it was founded, the Library belongs to the legislative branch of the national government. - Jane Aiken Rosenberg, 1988.

The Legacy of Library Leadership: A Library for All

In the foreword to Aiken’s new 2025 comprehensive history, the Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden wrote : “The Library of Congress’ progression from a small legal library to a grand national library, and one of the world’s greatest intellectual and cultural resources, is a story shaped by extraordinary individuals and hardworking civil servants. Above all, it is a story of an institution constantly evolving to face the mutable and ever-expanding sources of knowledge. What started in 1800 with only 740 books and three maps rapidly expanded to include sheet music, prints, newspapers, and new technologies like photographs, recorded sound and motion pictures.”

Although the LC isn’t our national library, it has increasingly functioned as one. To understand the significance of Dr. Hayden's tenure and dismissal, I thought we might consider the words of two famous historians who preceded Dr. Hayden as Librarians. Each Librarian of Congress has interpreted the role according to the needs of their time, revealing evolving perspectives on the purpose of our national library.

Daniel Boorstin, the twelfth Librarian of Congress from 1975-1987, also an American historian, observed: "In the beginning of my career as Librarian of Congress, I had a curious problem. I felt myself fitting the description that Oscar Wilde once gave of a man who was pretending to be an imposter. I found myself, as a scholar, pretending that I was not really a librarian. But, in fact, all librarians are scholars, and all scholars must be librarians."

James Billington, the thirteenth Librarian of Congress from 1987–2015, an American historian of Russian history and culture, wrote: "I worry about a very different problem, in our country, from the one of the country that I study—about how much we truly value and use the richness that we have in this [LC] and other of our great research libraries. Nearly three-fourths of the books in the Library of Congress are in foreign languages that Americans have generally ceased to study, and the great record of our own unique and inspiring national experience often seems neglected by our present video-minded society."

Dr. Hayden's own vision in 2016 revealed her commitment to improving accessibility and digital transformation: "What I hope to accomplish with the dedicated staff of The Library in the next ten years of the appointment is to really make more of the collections accessible in various formats. And if we can say that we have collections in the next ten years that have never been seen digitally and that are used and that are tied in with curriculums around the country and that people are going to, at the end of ten years, if people are thinking of the Library of Congress as a go-to place in the stratosphere, really, for information and resource—that, I think, would be quite an accomplishment." The LC 2024-2028 strategic report is titled “A Library for all.”

Digital Transformation and Institutional Priorities

Dr. Hayden's recent testimony before Congress on May 6 provides insight into her priorities and the direction she and her librarians were setting for the Library. Her focus on modernization, digital access, and preservation represented a forward-thinking approach to stewarding our national collections in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. Today, the Library of Congress’s digital collections, including those from the American Memory project and the National Digital Library, are some of the most popular resources that provide free online access to rich primary sources on American history and culture. While the foundational American Memory and National Digital Library initiatives originated under previous Librarian James H. Billington, Dr. Hayden’s leadership expanded and accelerated these efforts, making the Library’s resources even more accessible to the public. Soft power at its best.

In her testimony, Dr. Hayden emphasized several critical IT initiatives: the Copyright Office's Enterprise Copyright System, the Library Collections Access Platform, and significant investments in digital preservation systems. She noted that "pulling back now will jeopardize our efforts, and we must maintain this momentum and continue building upon these investments to leverage their true potential for all Americans."

The Library's significant IT modernization efforts represent substantial investments in our national information infrastructure. As copyright and AI questions increasingly dominate legal and policy discussions, the stewardship of these systems and the principles that guide them take on particular significance. Dr. Hayden's request for $5.4 million to replace and upgrade the decades-old digital preservation system and $2.5 million for web application delivery improvements demonstrate her commitment to maintaining the Library's technological relevance.

A Shifting Landscape for Cultural Institutions

Dr. Hayden's dismissal comes in the midst of wider changes across cultural and intellectual institutions nationwide. It raises questions about the future direction of public information policy. Is “a library for all” i.e. democratic access to information and technological modernization in contrast to emerging priorities that appear to favor deregulation and private sector solutions to information management challenges?

At a time when debates about copyright, artificial intelligence, and information access are intensifying, leadership at the Library of Congress has many implications. The Library is not only a congressional research library overseeing vast collections, it also houses the U.S. Copyright Office, positioning it at the center of consequential decisions about intellectual property in the age of generative AI. The Library is the largest treasure house of knowledge and data in many languages and formats and not limited by subject or national boundary, for which AI systems are increasingly hungry. The Library is actively experimenting with AI to improve its services but companies are increasingly interested in acquiring the data for training their own AI models.

The timing of Dr. Hayden's removal—following her detailed budget testimony outlining an ambitious modernization agenda—also raises questions. Her plans for expanded digital collections processing, data analytics capacity, and digital accessibility programs represented a comprehensive strategy for a 21st-century national library. How will these initiatives continue under new leadership?

Professional Integrity Meets Institutional Politics

Dr. Hayden's situation resonates deeply with me because I have witnessed firsthand the challenges faced by library leaders who prioritize professional values over institutional expediency. My own experiences in academic librarianship revealed similar tensions when I advocated for access and services that centered patron privacy and institutional independence. I found myself increasingly at odds with a leadership that viewed library services primarily through the lens of vendor relationships and technological "efficiencies" at the expense of user experiences, privacy, and intellectual freedom.

This is a troubling pattern in contemporary library leadership. Too often, those who stand firm on professional principles find themselves replaced by those more willing to accommodate external commercial interests and administrative convenience. This dynamic—where library leaders and information school faculty increasingly face pressure to sacrifice long-held values of open access, privacy, and intellectual freedom in favor of partnerships and commercial models—threatens the foundation of libraries (and academies) as democratic institutions.

Dr. Hayden's removal, while occurring at a much more prominent and national level, appears to follow a similar pattern where professional expertise and principled leadership may have conflicted with shifting political and commercial priorities. As libraries at all levels navigate relationships with powerful technology companies and face pressure to adopt their products and priorities, maintaining professional integrity becomes increasingly challenging and even more essential.

Preserving Professional Values During Transitions

Dr. Hayden approached leadership from the perspective of a trained librarian with deep experience in information access and community engagement from her previous roles such as a teaching and research faculty, a children’s librarian, and CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.

This professional orientation positioned her to understand both the scholarly imperatives of preservation and the democratic imperatives of access—a balance increasingly crucial as information becomes more digitized, technology more disruptive, and more controlled by commercial interests.

The staff of the Library of Congress—which Dr. Hayden noted in her testimony has declined from over 5,000 employees in the early 1990s to approximately 3,300 today—represents "the apex of their professions, bringing unparalleled knowledge, expertise, and experience to bear for the benefit of Congress and the American people." The institutional knowledge and professional values these staff members represent are essential in maintaining the Library's mission through this leadership transition.

Looking Forward

I feel gratitude for Dr. Hayden's service. I also wonder what comes next for our national library. Will it be a public library for all, like Dr. Hayden and some of its Librarians envisioned? Will it continue to be a soft power and force of good?

Dr. Hayden's legacy reminds us that professional values matter—that expertise in library services and information sciences brings vital perspective to the stewardship of our collective knowledge.

The Library of Congress stands as it has for over two hundred and twenty-five years as the steward of the largest collection of information and resources ever assembled—not as a memorial but as a living source of knowledge and creativity for Congress and the betterment of the nation. - Carla Hayden

For her service to libraries, we owe Dr. Carla Hayden our profound thanks.

Thank you Dr. Carla Hayden.

An Invitation

In gratitude for Dr. Carla Hayden’s vision of the Library of Congress as a resource for all, I invite you to browse its digital collections on the web and discover its treasures. Subscribe to the Library of Congress Magazine or one of its blogs to stay updated. Visit: https://loc.gov/ and https://www.loc.gov/services-and-programs/

Notes

Shakir, U. (2025, May 1). Microsoft goes passwordless by default on new accounts. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/news/659929/microsoft-passwordless-passkeys-by-default.

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

Limbong, A. (2025, May 9). Librarian of Congress firing is latest move in upheaval of U.S. cultural institutions. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5393737/carla-hayden-fired-library-of-congress-trump

Hughes, T. (2025, May 8). Via email, Trump fires head of Library of Congress. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/05/08/trump-fires-head-of-the-library-of-congress-carla-hayden/83526572007/

James H. Billington and Daniel J. Boorstin on the Library of Congress, p. 39-56. In Rochell, Carlton C. In praise of libraries. New York University Press, 1989.

History of Library of Congress Project Launched: News from the Center for the Book. (1994, March 21). Information Bulletin. https://loc.gov/loc/lcib/94/9406/cfb.html

ALA praises service of Dr. Carla Hayden, decries “unjust dismissal” of Librarian of Congress. https://www.ala.org/news/2025/05/ALA-praises-service-dr-carla-hayden-decries-dismissal

Morelle’s Statement on Abrupt Firing of Dr. Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress. May 8, 2025. https://democrats-cha.house.gov/media/press-releases/morelles-statement-abrupt-firing-dr-carla-hayden-librarian-congress

Carla Hayden. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Hayden

Carla Hayden. Librarian of Congress. Sept. 2016. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021690814/

Walsh, Dylan. (June 8, 2023). Carla D. Hayden wants to spread the wonders of the library into everyone’s lives. UChicago News. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/carla-d-hayden-wants-spread-wonders-library-everyones-lives

A Library For All. Library of Congress Strategic Report, 2024-2028. (36 page pdf). Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/static/portals/strategic-plan/documents/strategic-plan-2024-2028.pdf | Our Progress: https://www.loc.gov/strategic-plan/our-progress/

136–1. Appointment and term of service of Librarian of Congress. In 2015, Congress passed the Librarian of Congress Succession Modernization Act, which established a 10-year term for the Librarian of Congress, with the possibility of reappointment. This law applies to appointments made on or after November 5, 2015, which includes Dr. Hayden’s appointment. This change was made at the suggestion of librarians, including Dr. Hayden, a fact she made clear in her GBH interview, a week before her firing. Sources: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title2-section136-1&num=0&edition=prelim | https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-05-09/in-her-own-words-fired-librarian-of-congress-speaks-with-gbh-in-last-week-on-the-job

The Honorable Carla Hayden Testimony, May 6, 2025. (transcript and video link below). Full Committee Hearing: “Oversight of the Operations of the Library of Congress.” Committee on House Administration. https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/a-review-of-the-fiscal-year-2026-budget-requests-for-the-library-of-congress-and-the-architect-of-the-capitol

Chairman Mullin, Ranking Member Heinrich, and Members of the Subcommittee:

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony in support of the Library’s fiscal 2026 budget request.

The mission of the Library of Congress is to “Engage, inspire and inform the Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity.” Above all, the Library exists to serve. Service to the Congress remains the foundation for the Library’s mission every day with analysis, policy consultations, briefings, programs and constituent engagement.

The Library’s resources are authoritative, expansive, and evergreen. In a time of rapidly evolving technology in a fast-changing world, the Library of Congress stands as it has for over two hundred and twenty-five years (225) as the steward of the largest collection of information and resources ever assembled – not as a memorial but as a living source of knowledge and creativity for Congress and the betterment of the nation. The Library meets its responsibility to collect, preserve and share these treasures every day by constantly renewing the collections and the services it provides to the Congress and the American people. With congressional support, the Library is extensively modernizing and optimizing its systems, processes, and staff. Throughout, the Library never stops its drive to engage, inspire and inform, increasingly through digital means.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the ongoing and extraordinary support that this committee and the Congress gives to the Library. I especially appreciate the funding you have provided for major Information Technology (IT) investments that we are implementing and continuously improving to meet user expectations for greater access and new and enhanced tools.

These investments include the Copyright Office’s Enterprise Copyright System (ECS); CRS’s IT Modernization; the National Library Service’s Braille and Audio Reading Download service (BARD) and next generation devices; the Library Collections Access Platform (LCAP); Congress.gov; and the Library’s core IT infrastructure and IT security. Across the Library there’s been great progress in modernization and information technology security, but we are not yet finished. Pulling back now will jeopardize our efforts, and we must maintain this momentum and continue building upon these investments to leverage their true potential for all Americans.

I would also like to give special thanks for your continued support of the Library’s Visitor Experience initiative. The Library’s Treasures Gallery opened to the public in June 2024, and we are excited to open the Library’s new education center – The Source – by the end of 2025, in time for the nation’s Semiquincentennial celebrations. I am pleased to report that construction and fabrication for the Orientation Gallery is now underway, too.

I come before you today to discuss the Library’s fiscal 2026 appropriations request of $946.2 million, which represents a 5.4 percent increase over the Library’s current funding, which has been set at fiscal 2024 appropriation levels as we operate under a continuing resolution (CR). Given current economic conditions, we have revised programmatic increases and minimized out-year costs, deferring all but the most time-critical requests.

The Library’s fiscal 2026 appropriations request aligns with the strategic goals set forth in our fiscal 2024-2028 Strategic Plan, A Library for All – expand access, enhance services, strengthen capacity, and foster innovation. It affirms the Library’s user-centered mission of service. It builds on multiyear strategic efforts to rebuild the Library’s information technology foundation and to optimize advanced IT systems and business processes, while at the same time enhancing access and customer service. And it invests in the future, ensuring that the Library can safeguard and support its collections, services, and workforce in person and online.

Staff are the heart of the Library of Congress. Our employees represent the apex of their professions, bringing unparalleled knowledge, expertise, and experience to bear for the benefit of Congress and the American people.

We are providing more programs and services than ever before, and while modernization and automation have allowed us to expand productivity in some areas and to do more with less, it is worth noting that the Library’s staffing level has remained largely unchanged since fiscal 2015. Indeed, the Library’s permanent workforce steadily declined from over 5,000 employees in the early 1990s to its current level of approximately 3,300. It is critical that this relatively low staff level be adequately supported.

With that said, the Library’s fiscal 2026 appropriations request does include $30.9 million in mandatory pay and price-level increases. As a result of the continuing resolution, the Library has had to absorb the cost of mandatory pay and high inflationary price-level increases in fiscal 2025. The need to absorb these expenses threatens our ability to execute the Library’s full range of programs and services. It also has an outsized negative impact on the Library of Congress, Salaries & Expenses appropriation, which funds centralized support services across the entire agency.

The Library has three new programmatic requests for fiscal 2026 that, if funded, would provide the resources we need to develop strategic initiatives that deliver greater access and enhanced services, strengthen our capacity, and foster innovation. These requests would also help us to keep pace with digital advancements and deliver exceptional service to the Congress and the American people.

Preservation Object Storage Upgrade

The Library is requesting $5.4 million to replace and upgrade the decades-old digital preservation system at the Library’s on-premises sites with Object Storage technology to achieve compatibility with cloud-native technologies and storage.

The Library is responsible for preserving and securing the world’s largest collection of knowledge. To meet this responsibility with digital collections and data, the Library’s Office of the Chief 3 Information Officer (OCIO) has established specific strategies for preservation data (preserved for future generations) and presentation data (available on Library web sites). Both strategies require multiple copies of data stored securely on-premises and in the cloud.

The Library currently maintains two digital preservation tape libraries that are now over twenty years old. The requested funding will allow OCIO to replace and upgrade this decades-old digital preservation system with the industry standard Object Storage format, which is required to support the applications developed by the Library within the cloud including: the digital collections platform; NLS’s Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) application; the Enterprise Copyright System (ECS), and the Audio-Visual Content Management System (AVCMS). Each of these cloud-native applications depends on access to Library data to deliver content and provide important services to the public.

This upgrade will establish parity between the Library’s on-premises and cloud storage environments and best support current and future cloud-native technologies.

Web Application Delivery and Management Improvements

The Library is requesting $2.5 million annually to better serve the millions of users who access the Library’s data, collections, and services through its primary public websites by transitioning web development activities and hosting to the cloud. In fiscal year 2024, nearly 120 million people viewed more than a half a billion pages of websites managed by the Library.

In recent years, however, keeping up with the sites’ higher usage and the fast-growing scope and scale of the sites’ content has led to challenges maintaining a high level of scalability, reliability, and performance.

The technical and financial limitations of physical data centers leave us unable to provide needed capacity during periods of high demand from individual users and impact a growing number of data partners and research institutions using bulk-data services such as Application Program Interfaces (APIs).

This request will enable OCIO to update the Congress.gov, loc.gov, and copyright.gov websites and applications to utilize elastic technology available from commercial cloud providers. Elastic technology is a cloud feature that allows for the quick adjustment of resources like memory, storage, and processing power based on demand. This allows users to scale resources up or down to meet changing demands, without having concerns about capacity planning or peak usage.

This request invests in upgrading how the Library makes content and service available to the Congress and the American people and supports the access of collections in connection with the Preservation Object Storage Upgrade request.

Continuous Development of the Enterprise Copyright System (ECS)

The Library is requesting an appropriation of $6.8 million for the U.S. Copyright Office for three years to accelerate development and delivery of the Registration component of the Enterprise Copyright System (ECS), reducing the time to completion by approximately two years.

Recent stakeholder concerns, evolving technological demands, and congressional focus make it imperative to more quickly address the limitations of the existing online registration system, eCO, which has been used to support copyright registrations for over 15 years. There have been growing demands to accelerate the pace of IT development and delivery of the ECS Registration component to include the capabilities to support the entire registration process.

Registration acceleration will include all types of registration and methods of deposit (electronic and/or physical) presently available in eCO. Increasing resources devoted to registration will meet the demands of stakeholders for a new, enhanced and efficient registration system, allowing the Copyright Office to quickly sunset the legacy eCO system and other workflows that rely on legacy platforms.

Fiscal 2025 Re-Submissions

In keeping with the Library’s strategic goals, the Library is re-submitting the following three requests that were not funded in fiscal 2025. Given current economic conditions, these requests have been revised to reduce overall funding and eliminate permanent staff hires where possible.

Digital Collections Processing Capacity and Infrastructure (Expanding Access) will enable the Library to invest in end-to-end modernization of IT infrastructure to support the centrality of digital collecting and to upskill staff capacity to process digital content and support the associated IT systems.

This request is essential as the Library increasingly moves toward digital as the preferred format for acquiring items for the collections that were born digital or converted from analog form. Transitioning from an almost exclusively physical collections to increasingly digital collections is a multi-year undertaking. Existing digital systems that support most digital collections were developed iteratively more than a decade ago and are in need of investment to better standardize, integrate, and modernize to accommodate the scale of digital collections growth. These resources allow the Library to manage the actual digital collections ingest, processing, and access.

The request supports ongoing work to digitize and manage materials from the collections, and the continued growth of acquisitions in digital format. To achieve this, the request will provide resources critical to upgrading and improving the IT systems, workflows, and processes necessary to support ongoing work to digitize and manage digital materials from our collections, and to support the continued growth of acquisitions in digital format.

CRS: Expanding Data Analytics Capacity (Strengthening Capacity & Fostering Innovation) will enable the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to expand capabilities in quantitative data analysis and policy simulation capacity. It will expand CRS’ ability to perform quantitative analysis of both research and operational “big data” for congressional clients, establishing a base process and increased capacity for in-depth data analysis. In alignment with Congressional Members and Committees expressed interest, CRS is investigating how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies could enhance its work for the Congress.

CRS is working to make information more readily discoverable and accessible. It is also working to make finding reports and experts easier on CRS.gov and exploring AI and machine learning for analyzing legislative bills and text to expedite summaries and searches. CRS divisions are developing 5 interactive tools for Members, so that Members can determine more easily and immediately how multiple policy approaches might impact specific constituencies.

Ensuring Access through a Digital Accessibility Program (Expanding Access) will enable the Library to fully meet its mission in the information age. The Library’s digital products, materials, and services must be accessible to all, including veterans and those with disabilities. Direct patron and staff feedback, along with preliminary expert assessments, point to a large gap between the Library’s products, materials, and services and federal/international accessibility standards.

Chairman Mullin, Ranking Member Heinrich, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you again for supporting the Library of Congress and for your consideration of our fiscal 2026 budget request. The staff of the Library of Congress remain dedicated to our number one mission of service to the members and staff of the U.S. Congress.