Captain Underpants Is Welcome Here: Carla Hayden鈥檚 Vision for Community Hubs
She not only runs the world greatest library. She also keeps a Little Free Library in her office.
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This is part of our Community Cultivator series, which highlights how innovators across all sectors build and sustain global communities from the ground up.
A librarian right down to her sensible shoes, Dr. Carla Hayden greets visitors to her office in the Library of Congress with books she thinks they鈥檒l like. In an incredible coincidence, she brought me Eric Klinenberg鈥檚 Palaces of the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life, which I had just checked out from my local branch. (Our interview took place before the pandemic forced the Library of Congress to temporarily shut down.) She gets misty over the books that meant a lot to her as a child.
鈥�Bright April by Marguerite de Angeli was that book for me,鈥� she says of the 1946 classic. 鈥淚 had never 鈥榮een myself鈥� in the pages of a book before, and I鈥檒l never forget that feeling.鈥� She also fondly remembers her grandmother reading the tales of Hans Christian Andersen aloud.
Nevertheless, Hayden is emphatically not a book snob. 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 have to be War and Peace,鈥� she insists, noting that Dav Pilkey鈥檚 Captain Underpants series works just fine for some readers. She dismisses any notion of imposing 鈥渂ook guilt鈥� on lovers of graphic novels or audiobooks. 鈥淲e know more than ever before about how visual and auditory learners need to absorb information,鈥� she says.
It鈥檚 even okay to leave a book unfinished if it doesn鈥檛 speak to you. 鈥淩eading is not like eating your vegetables,鈥� Hayden says, noting that Jason Reynolds, and , didn鈥檛 read a whole book until he was 17 years old.
, libraries anchor her favorite childhood memories: 鈥淢y early experiences with libraries were all about being comfortable with being around books, being around stacks, feeling free to be around them.鈥�
Hayden is not just the first woman and the first African American appointed Librarian of Congress. She鈥檚 also only the second person whose profession was librarian before assuming the role. In many ways she鈥檚 continuing the work of Herbert Putnam, who held the post for the first four decades of the 20th century.
Hayden鈥檚 library career began in 1973, running story time in a Chicago neighborhood library, a trial by fire she still reflects upon when steeling herself for public speaking engagements. After serving as chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993, she moved to Baltimore to lead the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Pratt, whose namesake institution opened its doors in 1886, proclaimed it 鈥渁 free circulating public library, open to all citizens regardless of property or color.鈥� His example inspired Andrew Carnegie鈥攑hilanthropist and, 鈥攖o endow more than 2,500 libraries. Hayden strove to live up to Pratt鈥檚 vision, modernizing the 22 branches to serve a cross-section of Baltimore.
was the tenth child of book publisher George Palmer Putnam. While also working as a lawyer, he led public libraries in Minneapolis and then Boston, where he established one of the first library children鈥檚 room. President William McKinley named him Librarian of Congress in 1899 and he served for the next 40 years. During his tenure he moved the books to a new Beaux-Arts building across from the Capitol, instituted interlibrary loans and collaborated with the American Library Association.
Upon her arrival at the Library of Congress in 2016, she initiated visitor surveys and sifted through reviews and comments on TripAdvisor and other sites. She found that a substantial proportion who were aware of and who even passed through the space didn鈥檛 use it and didn鈥檛 realize they could. For a real librarian, that was just unacceptable. Now, a is fueling a reconfiguration of the monumental spaces to make them more inviting. In other words, Hayden is putting the library in Library of Congress.
Hayden, who also served as the president of the American Librarian Association, strongly believes in libraries as 鈥渃ommunity hubs,鈥� connecting people to resources like tax forms, voter registration and passport services. 鈥淭here are meeting rooms. Sometimes there鈥檚 yoga or classes. Or you can go as an individual and not connect if you don鈥檛 feel like it.鈥�
She also travels widely, visiting more than 20 states in the past three years. She鈥檚 doubled down on digitizing the collection and on traveling exhibitions that allow people to experience the Library鈥檚 treasures without having to come to Washington. And vice versa: she encourages community libraries across the country to make their assets accessible to all. 鈥淚f you have something that鈥檚 unique,鈥� she says, 鈥渄igitize it.鈥漣
鈥淟ibrarians are librarians,鈥� Hayden says. 鈥淲e serve our constituencies, whether it鈥檚 for a small town, a college campus, a business, or an entire country.鈥� She adds, with a smile that is not too modest: 鈥淲e do very well on Jeopardy.鈥�
This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 91涩漫. Learn more here.
Mark Swartz writes about efforts to improve early care and education as well as developments in the U.S. care economy. He lives in Maryland.
