“Carla, on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” wrote Trent Morse, deputy director of presidential staff on the White Space.
White Space Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later defined that Hayden, who used to be the primary lady, Black individual and professionally skilled librarian to supervise the Library of Congress, had carried out “quite concerning things,” at the task, together with “putting inappropriate books in the library for children.”
Democratic politicians sharply criticized Hayden’s termination, announcing the firing used to be unjust. It used to be in reality about Trump punishing civil servants “who don’t bend to his every will,” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer stated.
A data science pupil, I’ve written broadly concerning the historical past of libraries and archives, together with the Library of Congress. To completely perceive the position Hayden performed for the previous 9 years, I feel you will need to perceive what the Library of Congress does, and the overpassed and underappreciated position it has performed in American lifestyles.
Carla Hayden, the not too long ago fired librarian of Congress, attends an tournament in March 2025 in Washington.
Shannon Finney/Getty Pictures
The Library of Congress’ paintings
The Library of Congress is an company that used to be first established, via an act of Congress, in 1800. The act equipped for “the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them.” Its leader librarian is appointed via the president and showed via the Senate.
The library has six constructions in Washington that grasp a print and on-line number of just about 26 million books, in addition to greater than 136 million different pieces, together with manuscripts, maps, sheet track and prints and images.
It additionally homes ancient paperwork, like Thomas Jefferson’s tough draft of the Declaration of Independence and James Madison’s notes at the 1787 Constitutional Conference.
The library is the valuables of the American other folks. Someone over the age of 16 with a government-issued picture identity can input its constructions and skim or view its fabrics on-site. The Library of Congress used to be partly designed as a analysis establishment to fit the desires of contributors of Congress, and best Congress contributors can borrow pieces from the library and take them house.
The Library of Congress has an annual finances of about US$900 million, with a group of workers of three,263. In 2024, the library’s group of workers helped achieve 1,437,832 million new pieces, factor just about 69,000 library playing cards and solution greater than 764,000 reference requests, amongst different duties.
The library’s deep roots
The library has advanced along the U.S. itself. 5 years sooner than the Constitutional Conference of 1787, long term president James Madison referred to as for a library to offer fabrics to lend a hand tell Congress and its contributors. In 1800, President John Adams signed a invoice that established the establishment, which started with a $5,000 authorities appropriation, identical to greater than $127,000 as of late.
The library’s first assortment incorporated 152 works in 740 volumes imported from England. It occupied an area in a Washington Senate place of job that measured simply 22 ft via 34 ft.
The British military torched the baby library and its assortment that had grown to three,000 books in 1814, throughout the Conflict of 1812. In reaction, former president Thomas Jefferson offered his non-public number of 6,479 books to the library, which he referred to as “unquestionably the choicest collection of books in the U.S.”
Tragedy struck once more in 1851, with a hearth that incinerated two-thirds of the library’s 55,000 volumes, together with maximum of Jefferson’s non-public assortment.
The group rebounded in the following couple of years, because it bought the 40,000-volume Smithsonian library in 1866, amongst different new acquisitions.
A rising position in American lifestyles
As its collections burgeoned in each scale and scope within the latter a part of the nineteenth century, the library assumed an increasingly more visual position and was recognized via some as “the nation’s library.” Through 1900, it had just about 1 million revealed books and different fabrics.
The outlet of a brand new library development in 1897, providing products and services to blind other folks with a chosen studying room containing 500 raised personality – or braille – books and track pieces, epitomized the library’s new standing.
President Theodore Roosevelt stated in 1901 that the library used to be “the one national library of the United States” and that used to be “a unique opportunity to render to the libraries of this country – to American scholarship – service of the highest importance.”
The library’s paintings, and world means, endured to develop throughout the twentieth century.
Through the past due 1900s, the library held fabrics in additional than 450 languages.
It endured so as to add outstanding pieces to its assortment, together with a Gutenberg Bible, the primary e-book revealed in Europe from movable steel kind, one of those printing generation, in 1455.
Documenting the evolution of democracy, the library additionally assumed stewardship of 23 presidents’ reliable papers, from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, throughout this time period.
A public carrier
Whilst basically designated a analysis establishment for Congress, the library has additionally catered to a various vary of consumers, together with via mail and phone.
As one Science Digest creator famous in 1960, reference group of workers contributors fielded questions starting from “What was the color of a mastodon’s eye?” to “How many words are there in the English language?” and “Could you suggest a name for twins?”
Within the past due twentieth century, the library serious about a brand new democratic nationwide and world venture, because it embraced a brand new position. Daniel Boorstin, the librarian from 1975 to 1987, termed that position a “multimedia encyclopedia.”
A congressional answer marking the Library of Congress’s bicentennial in 2000 famous that it used to be “the largest and most inclusive library in human history,” because it digitized its collections to increase its succeed in nonetheless additional with the expansion of the web.
Because the library marks its 225th 12 months, it continues to constitute, as David Mearns, leader of the library’s manuscript department, stated in 1947, “the American story.”
The Thomas Jefferson Development of the Library of Congress is observed on June 11, 2025, in Washington.
Kevin Carter/Getty Pictures
A library for all
Hayden has contended that her dismissal, which took place along different firings of best civil servants, together with the nationwide archivist, represents a wide danger to other folks’s proper to simply get entry to loose data.
“Democracies are not to be taken for granted,” Hayden stated in June. She defined in an interview with CBS that she by no means had an issue with a presidential management and isn’t certain why she used to be brushed aside.
“And the institutions that support democracy should not be taken for granted,” Hayden added.
In her ultimate annual record as librarian, Hayden characterised the establishment as “truly, a library for all.” Thus far, even with out her management, it stays simply that.
