An Excellent Choice

For the first time in about 30 years, the Library of Congress COULD be headed by an actual <GASP!> librarian! Though her appointment is far from certain in our current Idiocracy, President Obama has nominated Carla Hayden for the position of Librarian of Congress. I think she is an excellent choice for a number of reasons. First, she is a librarian. Not just a run-of-the-mill librarian like me, but one who has made her career standing up for her ideals.

You might not remember, but Dr. Hayden was a vocal opponent of the Patriot Act in those frantic and frightened months after the 9/11 attacks. By publicly butting heads with the then Attorney General John Ashcroft, she made sure that the citizens of our country knew the dangers of that pernicious and long-lived erosion of our constitutional rights. The Patriot Act truly is the defeat of American ideals that the terrorists were looking for.

More recently, as head of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Dr. Hayden kept the library open during the rioting and strife that city experienced. EPFL remained open as a safe haven for the community in a time of danger and fear.

The Library of Congress has, in my humble opinion, fallen behind in the world of national libraries. Specifically, digital access to collections has been slow in coming. In order to lead in the world, again in my humble opinion, the US must lead in knowledge creation. We have a mighty engine of collection and organization for that knowledge that could regain preeminence in the library world under the leadership of a skilled librarian.