What’s going on at the Library of Congress?

Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress in the Thomas Jefferson Building, 2009. Photo from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive collection at the Library of Congress.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, 2020 Official Portrait.

On May 8th, 2025 the Trump administration abruptly fired Dr. Carla Hayden, the 14th Librarian of Congress. Dr. Hayden was the first woman AND African American to lead this library. During her tenure, she led the library’s digitization efforts and made their collections more accessible to the American public.

On May 9th, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Trump fired Dr. Carla Hayden due to “concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.”

Why that’s weird

According to The Library of Congress website, “Anyone age 16 and older may use the collections. All patrons using the Library's reading rooms and/or collections must have a reader card with a photo on it.” This isn't about children getting inappropriate books.

Why You Should Care

The Library of Congress (LOC) is the largest library in the world. It “serves as the research arm of Congress and is recognized as the national library of the United States. Its collections comprise the world's most comprehensive record of human creativity and knowledge.” The LOC also houses the U.S. Copyright Office which registers copyright claims, records info about copyright ownership, provides information to the public, and assists Congress and other parts of the government on a wide range of copyright issues.

Shira Perlmutter, Former Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office

Over Mother’s Day weekend, Trump fired the head of the US copyright office Shira Perlmutter. According to WIRED, “Perlmutter was removed from her post on Saturday, one day after the agency released a report that raised concerns about the legality in certain cases of using copyrighted materials to train artificial intelligence.”

That sounds familiar...

Just a few months ago, the public learned that Meta pirated millions of books to train their AI. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/libgen-meta-openai/682093/

"Authors are furious over Meta pirating their books to train its AI," WBUR, March 27, 2025.

“The Replacements”

Todd Blanche, Trump's appointee for acting Librarian of Congress

Paul Perkins, Trumps appointee for acting Register of Copyrights and Director of the Copyright Offic

Trump has appointed Todd Blanche, his former defense attorney and the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, as the acting Librarian of Congress. Unsurprisingly, Blanche is not a professional librarian and has never worked in the profession. The president also chose to appoint Brian Nieves as acting assistant librarian, and Paul Perkins to the post of acting Register of Copyrights and Director of the Copyright Office. These men were denied entry. - NPR

This a continuation of the Trump administration’s attack on education and democracy as well as a money grab for tech bros like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. 

This is their opportunity to control what information the America public has access to while illegally siphoning author’s and artist’s works to train their AI.

What You Can Do

Tell Congress to reinstate Dr. Carla Hayden as the Librarian of Congress!

• SEND AN EMAIL AND/OR WRITE LETTERS 

• PROTEST

• CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES

• Sign the Authors Guild's petition urging Congress to stop this power grab and restore Register Perlmutter to her position today: https://authorsguild.org/petition-to-reinstate-register.../