The Librarian of Congress and the Greatness of Humility

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  • The Librarian of Congress and the Greatness of Humility - The New Yorker
    http://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/the-librarian-of-congress-and-the-greatness-of-humility

    Hayden met a bit of opposition on her way to confirmation—the usual resistance to Obama’s later appointments, for one, and a tempest in a teapot about the use of Internet filters at public-library computers. More significant, some Republicans didn’t like Hayden’s firm resistance to the privacy encroachments of the Patriot Act when she was head of the A.L.A. Her opposition to what she saw as potentially McCarthyite government intrusion into citizens’ privacy earned her a Ms. Woman of the Year distinction in 2003. (“When the FBI came snooping, Carla Diane Hayden proved librarians are more freedom fighters than shushers,” Ms. wrote.) Mention her name to a New York Public Library staffer, and there’s a frisson of excitement; at her raucous and bustling sendoff in Baltimore, a high-school librarian, quoted in the Washington Post, called her a “rock star.”

    Like many librarians, Hayden is a big believer in the rights of all people to educate themselves, and in the importance of open access to information online. (This inclusive spirit has become more urgent nationally in recent weeks: see “Libraries Are for Everyone,” a multilingual meme and poster campaign, created by a Nebraska librarian, Rebecca McCorkindale, to counter the forces of fake news and fearmongering.) In September, Hayden gave a swearing-in speech in which she described how black Americans “were once punished with lashes and worse for learning to read.” She said that, “as a descendent of people who were denied the right to read, to now have the opportunity to serve and lead the institution that is our national symbol of knowledge is a historic moment.”

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