150 YEARS STRONG

A Long Legacy

Happy (almost) birthday, ALA!

While the Association’s founding is technically in October, our team [at American Libraries] was eager to put on our party hats to celebrate ALA’s 150th year. On the cover of our May 2026 issue, illustrator Gaby FeBland reconceptualizes a card from the 1876 library conference in Philadelphia and beautifully blends the profession’s past and present.

Inside the issue, you’ll find a timeline of key historical events (“55 Moments That Redefined Librarianship”), as well as an exhibit of library poster art through the decades (“Posters of Progress”). We extend a special hat tip to Cara Bertram, who oversees the ALA Archives at  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for assisting with our photo research on these two features. Both articles showcase how libraries continue to “reimagine their place in public life” and serve as a mirror of society’s aspirations and ideals.

Also finding their place in public life were the trailblazers of ALA. In “A Seat at the Table,” Anne Ford and Emily Udell interviewed eight “barrier-busting Association leaders about their struggles, triumphs, breakdowns, and breakthroughs” while serving as president or executive director of ALA.

The May 2026 issue of American Libraries

In our Bookend (“A Library for Librarians”), we profile the ALA Library and the work of ALA Librarian Colleen Barbus. Read about the queries she gets most often from the public.

Colleen and many of our other colleagues across the Association have been working for months to plan events and activities for this sesquicentennial year. We hope you’ve had a chance to check out the ALA anniversary website (ala150.org) and the oral history–style podcast episodes on “How I Library.”

And of course, there will be plenty of ALA150 programs and events at the Annual Conference in Chicago this June (including a powerful video narrated by former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, which will debut at the Opening General Session). Stay tuned. We hope to see you this summer, where we can all don our party hats to celebrate.

 

Sanhita SinhaRoy is editor and publisher of American Libraries.

This editorial first appeared in the May 2026 issue of American Libraries. 

150 YEARS STRONG

THE OFFICIAL ANNIVERSARY BLOG

A Long Legacy

Sanhita SinhaRoy June 11, 2026

While ALA’s founding is technically in October, the staff at American Libraries put on their party hats early to celebrate ALA’s 150th year with a plethora of Association and library history-related stories in the magazine’s May 2026 issue.

ALA posters

Posters of Progress: Mapping ALA’s History Through Library Poster Art

American Libraries June 9, 2026

From wartime appeals to celebrity-studded reading campaigns, library posters have long captured the evolving role of libraries in American life. This feature traces ALA’s history through some of its most iconic visuals. Together, these images chart a story of the profession’s unflinching ideals of access, literacy, and intellectual freedom, showcasing how libraries continue to reimagine their place in public life.

An index card tracking an ALA conference exhibition hall exhibitor from 1924-1947.

The Heartbeat of the Hall: 150 Years of Exhibitors Who Shaped Our Conference

ALA Conference Services June 3, 2026

Every year as the doors of ALA’s Annual Conference and Exhibition swing open, the exhibition hall comes alive. It is a ritual that has been repeated, refined, and reimagined throughout ALA’s 150-year history. And at the center of it all, providing the innovations, solutions, and partnerships that have propelled our profession forward, are the exhibitors. To mark this milestone, we look back at the rich history of exhibitors at the conference—where it began, how it grew, and why, 150 years on, the exhibition floor remains one of the most vital spaces in our professional world.

Librarian at the Reference Desk in Camp Johnston Library, from the ALA Archives.

Charles R. Green at Camp Johnston: ‘We Can Find Such a Man’

Cara Bertram May 28, 2026

During the summer of 1918, Charles Green, a librarian from the Massachusetts Agriculture College, served as the Acting Librarian for Camp Johnston in Jacksonville, Florida. While his tenure was brief, the Charles R. Green Papers in the American Library Association (ALA) Archives reveal Green’s rapid appointment and promotion. It also shows how quickly circumstances could change within the ALA’s Library War Service and the adaptability of its volunteers.

Detail of letter from Lynn Blaylock to the Intellectual Freedom Committee.

‘Nothing Could Have Astonished Me More’: The Challenge of Consumer Reports

Cara Bertram May 21, 2026

Due to communist hysteria before and after World War II, many organizations and publications were under suspicion of being affiliated with or promoting the Communist party, including Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, the product testing and consumer advocacy magazine. As a result, Ohio schools banned the use of Consumer Reports in the classroom. While the ban was short-lived, the questions about it were not and the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee noticed the attempts to ban the publication.