Dr. Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library, was nominated to the position by President Obama. She was the first African American to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling.

From AARP: “The first woman is significant because 80 percent of the library workforce in America is female. And of course, a person of color is significant because people who looked like me were once forbidden to read.”

As president of the American Library Association (ALA) from 2003 to 2004, Dr. Hayden was vocal in her public opposition to the Patriot Act, leading a battle for the protections of library users’ privacy. As a result of her stand for the rights of every American, she became Ms. magazine’s Woman of the Year. In her interview with the magazine, she stated: “Libraries are a cornerstone of democracy—where information is free and equally available to everyone. People tend to take that for granted, and they don’t realize what is at stake when that is put at risk.”

From AARP: “I love books and reading and knew what they meant to me. When I found out that there was a profession that could help other people enjoy reading, I thought this is really something that speaks to me personally. It was really a match made in heaven.”