Dr. Carla D. Hayden has been named the 14th Librarian of Congress. She will be the first woman and the first African-American to take on this role.
Hayden received a nomination for the position by President Barack Obama in February 2016. The United States Senate confirmed the appointment yesterday in a vote of 74 to 18 in Hayden’s favor.
Here’s more from the press release: “Dr. Hayden has recently overseen the renovation of the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, a four-year, $112 million project, and has also led $40 million in renovations to other units within the 22-branch Pratt system…She took the helm of the Baltimore system in 1993, winning strong praise for her work to ensure that the city’s library system offers a broad array of services to assist citizens from all walks of life, from access to books and other learning materials to computer access and job information. A program of outreach into neighborhoods served by the Pratt libraries included after-school centers for teens, offering homework assistance and college counseling; a program offering healthy-eating information for residents in areas with insufficient access to high-quality food; programming in Spanish; establishment of an electronic library, and digitization of the Library’s special collections.”