Library budgets and sources of funding, AI and tech tools, collection development and ease of circulation: these overlapping topics enlivened conversations at the American Library Association’s 2025 Annual Conference, held June 26–30 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Talk also turned to the ALA’s upcoming 150th year as an organization, to be celebrated in Chicago next summer.
“We’re in this historical moment,” incoming 2025–2026 ALA president Sam Helmick told PW. “We’re about to turn 150, we’re in the national capital that’s about to be about 250, and folks are remembering that we make democracy. Freedom doesn’t defend itself; it requires us to step up in challenging times.”
Our political moment was on the minds of this year’s ALA attendees, some of whom braved the summer humidity to take walking tours around Independence Hall, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the site of America’s first lending library. At the print shop once operated by Benjamin Franklin, National Park Service employees inked letterpress copies of the Declaration of Independence. Robert Newlen, who stepped in to become acting Librarian of Congress when Carla Hayden was dismissed from the position, visited the Library of Congress booth on the exhibition floor to meet ALA members and demonstrate support for the freedom of information. Newlen told PW that programming proceeds apace at the nation’s library, “thanks to our fabulous staff.”
The Philly setting and cultural moment led new ALA president Helmick to reflect on “the informed constituency” essential to preserving democracy and sustaining free libraries. “We’re a ‘stay humble, hustle hard’ profession, but that is predicated on people supporting us with legislation and funding,” Helmick said, mindful of contemporary threats to the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Library of Congress. Instability at IMLS already has led to staffing cuts, interrupted research, and reduced essential spending, notably at academic institutions and school libraries.
Yet Helmick noted that librarians themselves are a significant economic driver. “We’ve been told we’re the largest hotel block the city will see this year,” bringing nearly 15,000 attendees to 35 Philly hotels, Helmick said. ALA itself has about 50,000 members, representing some 290,000 library workers, and together they serve “hundreds of millions” of people.
Economic and legislative considerations were much on the minds of attendees, who were fired up to defend the profession if stressed by the task ahead. It was an apt moment to hear from lifelong activist George Takei, who spoke about his new book It Rhymes with Takei (Top Shelf) with PW’s Meg Lemke; Takei talked about his decades of civil rights advocacy and why he waited so long to come out as gay. In his remarks, Takei called librarians “the pillars of democracy.”
ALA members also took inspiration from sociologist and Daring Greatly author Brené Brown, who sat down to talk with 2024–2025 ALA president Cindy Hohl during the June 29 President’s Program. In her down-to-earth conversation with Hohl, Brown reassured librarians and library workers that “the antidote to despair is hope” and that they should alternate their activist efforts and news intake with time for recovery. (She shunned “the S-word, ‘self care.’”). “It’s really hard when your goal in life is to end injustice,” Brown told the gathering of hundreds in the PCC ballroom. “Get small and local” to exert agency, she said, and “reward small achievements” that make incremental social change.
Brown said her next book will be “a spiritual response to Dare to Lead,” her 2018 book about empathy and power. Her goal is to envision “the skills we’ll need to move forward and find firm ground in the maelstrom. I think courage and our deep connection with each other are the strong ground we’re looking for.”
