A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world.
Sanford Berman is a librarian. He is known for radicalism, promoting alternative viewpoints in librarianship, and acting as a proactive information conduit to other librarians around the world. His vehicles of influence include public speaking, voluminous correspondence, and unsolicited "care packages" delivered via the U.S. Postal Service. Will Manley, columnist for the American Library Association (ALA) publication, American Libraries, has praised Berman: "He makes you proud to be a librarian."
Eric Foner is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstruction, and historiography, and has been a member of the faculty at the Columbia University Department of History since 1982. He is the author of several popular textbooks, such as the Give Me Liberty series for high school classrooms. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Foner is the most frequently cited author on college syllabi for history courses. According to historian Timothy Snyder, Foner is the first to associate the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 with section three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Elonnie J. Josey was an African-American activist and librarian. Josey was the first chair of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, having been instrumental in its formation in 1970; served as president of the American Library Association from 1984 to 1985; and was the author of over 400 books and other publications.
The United States Social Forum is an ongoing series of gatherings of social justice activists in the United States which grew out of the World Social Forum process, bringing together activists, organizers, people of color, working people, poor people, and indigenous people from across the United States. Its purpose is to build unity around common goals of social justice, build ties between organizations at the event, and help build a broader social justice movement. Planning for the first event was spearheaded by the organization Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, and involved dozens of other organizations around the United States. The Forum defines itself as "a movement-building process. It is not a conference but it is a space to come up with the peoples’ solutions to the economic and ecological crisis. The USSF is the next most important step in our struggle to build a powerful multi-racial, multi-sectoral, inter-generational, diverse, inclusive, internationalist movement that transforms this country and changes history."
The Progressive Librarians Guild(PLG) was founded in New York City in January 1990 by librarians concerned with the library profession's "rapid drift into dubious alliances with business and the information industry, and into complacent acceptance of service to an unquestioned political, economic and cultural status quo," according to the organization's statement of purpose. The initial three organizers were Elaine Harger, Mark Rosenzweig and Elliot Shore. The PLG addresses issues especially relating to librarianship and human rights.
Carla Diane Hayden is an American librarian who is serving as the 14th librarian of Congress. Since the creation of the office of the librarian of Congress in 1802, Hayden is both the first African American and the first woman to hold this post. Appointed in 2016, she is the first professional librarian to hold the post since 1974.
Arthur Curley was an American librarian who was listed as one of the 100 most important library leaders of the 20th century by journal American Libraries.
Librarianship and human rights in the U.S. are linked by the philosophy and practice of library and information professionals supporting the rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), particularly the established rights to information, knowledge and free expression.
The University of Arizona School of Information is a multidisciplinary academic department and professional school that is housed within the University's College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. The school focuses on the many aspects of information organization, management, or use and its impact on individuals and society. A combination of the School of Information Resources & Library Science (SIRLS) and the School of Information: Science, Technology, and Arts (SISTA), this new department plays host to faculty and students engaged in research and education on facets of the information sciences.
The John Sessions Memorial Award is presented annually by the Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association. It recognizes a library or library system which has made a significant effort to work with the labor community and by doing so has brought recognition to the history and contribution of the labor movement to the development of the United States. John Sessions of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) was co-chair of the AFL-CIO/ ALA Joint Committee on Library Service to Labor Groups.
Henry Joseph Foner was a 20th-century Jewish-American social activist and president for more than two decades of the Joint Board, Fur, Leather and Machine Workers Union (FLM).
Emily Drabinski is an American academic, librarian, author, and teacher who served as president of the American Library Association from July 2023 to July 2024.
Elizabeth W. Stone was an American librarian and educator and president of the American Library Association from 1981 to 1982. In 1988 she was awarded Honorary Membership in the American Library Association. In 1998 she was honored with the Beta Phi Mu Award for distinguished service to education for librarianship.
Carol Anmuth Nemeyer was an American librarian and a president of the American Library Association from 1982 to 1983. she married Lieutenant Commander Sheldon Nemeyer on September 23, 1950.
Patricia Glass Schuman is an American librarian and publisher who served as president of the American Library Association from 1991 to 1992. She is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and the Columbia University School of Library Service.
Maurice J. (Mitch) Freedman is an American librarian best known for his advocacy for socially responsible cataloging and library technologies, as well as for championing the cause of intellectual freedom. He served as president of the American Library Association from 2002 to 2003.
Wanda Kay Brown is an American librarian, who was the president of the American Library Association for the 2019–2020 term. She is the director of the C. G. O'Kelly Library at Winston-Salem State University and a leader in state and national library associations. She is the first American Library Association president who is a library director at one of the nation's historically black colleges and universities. She is twice president of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association in 2006-2008 and 2024-2026.
