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.
Discover the people, policies, and pivotal moments that shaped the ALA and the libraries we all rely on. Our anniversary blog is your behind-the-scenes look at the legacy we’re honoring and the future we’re building, with regular stories on how we’re celebrating.
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.
Posters of Progress: Mapping ALA’s History Through Library Poster Art
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.
The Heartbeat of the Hall: 150 Years of Exhibitors Who Shaped Our Conference
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.
Charles R. Green at Camp Johnston: ‘We Can Find Such a Man’
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.
The Library War Service: ALA’s Book Campaigns in World War I
Historian Wayne Wiegand looks at ALA’s Library War Service, which the Association established in 1917 to provide books and library services to U.S. soldiers and sailors both in training at home and serving in Europe during WWI.
‘Nothing Could Have Astonished Me More’: The Challenge of Consumer Reports
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.
A Seat at the Table: Reflections from Eight ALA Trailblazers
For 150 years, the American Library Association has shaped the landscape of libraries and the profession itself—but its leadership has often reflected the racial and gender biases of society at large. American Libraries spoke with eight barrier-busting Association leaders about their struggles, triumphs, breakdowns, and breakthroughs. The stories and lessons they share reveal how diversity fuels and transforms the power of libraries everywhere.
55 Moments That Redefined Librarianship
As the American Library Association (ALA) celebrates 150 years, we’re drawing inspiration from key events since its 1876 founding: from the first conventions and library schools, through wartime and the fight for civil rights, to seismic technological advancements and the existential threats of the current moment. Though not a comprehensive timeline of library history, the milestones collected here demonstrate lasting impact and how libraries and the profession are intertwined with the American story itself—as repositories of memory, arenas of debate, and enduring instruments of democratic life.
Shared Visions: The National Conference on Asian/Pacific American Librarians
In 2001, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association and the Chinese American Librarians Association partnered to host the first and only National Conference on Asian/Pacific American Librarians. The theme, Shared Visions: Heritages, Scholarship, Progress, was chosen “with a sincere commitment to representing the rich diversity of East, South and Southeast Asian and Pacific American ethnicities, cultures and communities.”
Although women had been employed in libraries previously, the six young women hired by Melvil Dewey in 1883 to work at Columbia College library captured the imagination of 20th-century library historians as groundbreaking fore-mothers of female employment and/or the beginnings of low-paid exploitation of women in the library workforce, but never as six young individuals at the beginning of six full lives.