Carla Diane Hayden (born August 10, 1952) is an American librarian who served as the 14th librarian of Congress. Hayden was both the first African American and the first woman to hold this post. Appointed in 2016, she was the first professional librarian to hold the post since 1974. In May 2025, she was dismissed from the post by President Donald Trump. On July 7, 2025, she was appointed senior fellow at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Hayden began her career at the Chicago Public Library, and earned a Ph.D. in library science from the University of Chicago. From 1993 until 2016, she was the CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, and president of the American Library Association (ALA) from 2003 to 2004. During her presidency, she was the leading voice of the ALA in speaking out against provisions of the newly passed United States Patriot Act, which impacted public information services.
In 2020, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Hayden was born in Tallahassee, Florida, to Bruce Kennard Hayden Jr., at that time director of the String Department at Florida A&M University, and Colleen Hayden (née Dowling), a social worker. Her parents met while attending Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. Hayden grew up in New York City. When she was 10 years old, her parents divorced and she moved with her mother to Chicago. She had a younger half-brother from her father's second marriage, Bruce Kennard Hayden, III, who died in 1992.
Hayden's mother's side of the family comes from Helena, Arkansas. Her father's maternal side of the family, who eventually settled in Du Quoin, Illinois, had been enslaved, which is chronicled in the book, It's Good to Be Black, by Ruby Berkley Goodwin.
Hayden has said that her passion for reading was inspired by Marguerite de Angeli's Bright April, a 1946 book about a young African-American girl who was in the Brownies. Attending Chicago's South Shore High School, Hayden became interested in books on British history and cozy mysteries. She attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois, and then transferred to Roosevelt University.
She did not consider a career in libraries until after she had graduated from Roosevelt University with a degree in political science and African history in 1973. Hayden received her master's degree in library science in 1977, and a doctorate in library science in 1987, both from the University of Chicago Graduate Library School.
Hayden began her library career at the Chicago Public Library telling stories to children with autism. From 1973 to 1979, she worked as an associate/children's librarian at the Whitney Young branch. From 1979 to 1982, she served as the young adult services coordinator. From 1982 to 1987, Hayden worked as a library services coordinator at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
Hayden then moved to Pittsburgh and became an associate professor, teaching from 1987 to 1991 at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences.
Hayden then moved back to Chicago and became Deputy Commissioner and Chief Librarian of the Chicago Public Library, posts she held from 1991 to 1993. During her time working at the Chicago Public Library, Hayden became acquainted with Michelle Obama and Barack Obama.
From 1993 to 2016, Hayden was executive director of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Prior to and during her ALA presidency, Hayden played a role in influencing the creation of the Spectrum Scholarship Program, which was first developed in 1997 and offers yearly scholarships. This scholarship program seeks to recruit and fund the education of students of color to help them obtain graduate degrees and leadership positions within the field and the ALA.
In January 2010, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Hayden as a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board and National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities.
On July 1, 1993, Hayden was appointed director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the public library system in Baltimore, Maryland.
During her tenure, Hayden provided outreach services that included "an afterschool center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling." Because of this, Hayden received Library Journal's Librarian of the Year Award in 1995. She is the first African American to have received this award. Hayden's period as director included the construction of the Pratt Library's first new branch in more than 30 years, in 2007. During the 2015 Baltimore protests, Hayden kept Baltimore's libraries open, an act for which she received praise. When asked to reflect about this period in a 2016 Time interview she stated that since many stores in the community closed, "we knew that [people] would look for that place of refuge and relief and opportunity."
She left the position on August 11, 2016, when she was appointed to the Library of Congress.
As president of the American Library Association (ALA) from 2003 to 2004, Hayden chose the theme "Equity of Access". This included a strong focus on outreach programs.
She was also publicly opposed to the Patriot Act, voicing concerns about library user privacy. She especially objected to the special permissions contained in Section 215 of that law, which gave the Department of Justice and the FBI the power to access library user records. Hayden debated publicly with then-Attorney General John Ashcroft over the language of the law.