Tracie D. Hall

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Tracie D. Hall
Born1968 Edit this on Wikidata
Los Angeles Edit this on Wikidata
Alma mater
OccupationLibrarian Edit this on Wikidata
Employer
Awards
  • Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community (2022) Edit this on Wikidata

Tracie D. Hall (born 1968)[1] is an American librarian, author, curator, and advocate for the arts who served as the executive director of the American Library Association from 2020 to 2023.[2][3] Hall is the first African American woman to lead the association since its founding in 1876.[4]

Early life and education[edit]

Hall was born and raised in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.[5]

She received a dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in law and society and African American studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1991.[6] She went on to receive a Master of Arts in international studies from Yale University[6] and a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) from the University of Washington Information School, where she studied under Spencer Shaw.[7]

Career[edit]

Prior to her appointment as ALA executive director, Hall served as the director of the Joyce Foundation Culture Program.[8] She also served as Chicago's Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. In libraries, Hall was vice president of the Queens Public Library and assistant dean of Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science. She was the director of the Office for Diversity for the American Library Association from 2003 to 2006.[9] Earlier in her career, she had worked at the Seattle Public Library and Hartford Public Library and run a homeless shelter in Santa Monica.[10] In the private sector, she worked as community investment strategist at Boeing’s Global Corporate Citizenship Division.[5]

Hall is founder and curator of Rootwork Gallery, an experimental arts space in Chicago founded in 2016. She has served as a visiting curator at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a visiting professor at Southern Connecticut State University, Wesleyan University, and the Catholic University of America.[11] A poet and playwright, Hall was a Cave Canem Foundation fellow.[5]

On October 5, 2023, the American Library Association (ALA) announced Hall's resignation. Hall had been executive director since 2020, leading the Association through the COVID-19 pandemic.[3]

External audio
audio icon 'A Revolutionary Act': The Power Of A 21st Century Library Card, WBEZ[12]
audio icon Bonus Episode: One-on-One with New ALA Executive Director Tracie D. Hall, American Library Association[13]

In 2023-2024 Hall is visiting fellow at the University of London Royal Holloway College, researching the impact of Brexit on public libraries in the United Kingdom.

In Fall 2024 Hall will be Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at the University of Washington Information School.[14]

Publications and presentations[edit]

Tracie D. Hall has written about community transformation,[15] the digital divide,[16] community disinvestment,[17] the right to read for the incarcerated,[18] and eradicating information poverty.[19] She has written foundational work on the need for diversity in the library profession.[20]

Hall has been a frequent speaker at scholarly conferences. She gave the Bobinski Lecture at the University of Buffalo in 2022: "The urgency of information equity."[21] In 2022 she was also keynote at the Connecticut Library Association: "Information Redlining: The Role of Libraries in Disrupting the Growing Socioeconomic Divide."[22]

Hall presented the keynote lecture at the United Kingdom Library Association in 2020: "Information Redlining: The Urgency to Close the Socioeconomic Divide and the Role of Libraries as Lead Interveners." In 2009 Hall keynoted at the International Federation of Library Associations in Bologna, Italy: "The 10 Ways Visionary Librarianship Can Change the World."

Writing in Time magazine in 2023 Hall quoted Senator Wendell Ford: "If information is the currency of democracy, then libraries are its banks."[23]

Awards and honors[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Hall, Tracie D. (2003). "Dream of the Soft-shell Crab, Hazel at the Ailey Matinee, Third and Main, Kneading: Zhang Yu, Fly Girl/Letter to Bessie Coleman". Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. 4 (1): 100–108. doi:10.1353/mer.2004.0009. ISSN 1547-8424.
  2. ^ "ALA Appoints Tracie D. Hall as Executive Director". American Libraries Magazine. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
  3. ^ a b "Executive Director Tracie D. Hall to Depart from ALA". American Libraries Magazine. Retrieved October 5, 2023.
  4. ^ Feldman, Sari (June 5, 2020). "PW Talks with ALA Executive Director Tracie D. Hall". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  5. ^ a b c "A Conversation with Tracie D. Hall Intersection Between Purpose and Experimental". BlogTalkRadio. January 16, 2018. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  6. ^ a b "The Levity of Libraries". UC Santa Barbara Alumni. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  7. ^ Hall, Tracie D.; McFarland, Michelle; Browne, Elise (July 7, 2010). "Remembering Dr. Spencer Shaw". www.hartfordinfo.org. Hartford Public Library. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  8. ^ Hall, Tracie D. (May 1, 2019). "Aiming for inclusive community renewal, one Cleveland artist at a time". Cleveland. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
  9. ^ "ALA Names Tracie D. Hall Executive Director". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
  10. ^ a b "NY's Queens Library Brings In Youth Services Champion to New Post". Library Journal. August 29, 2012. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  11. ^ "Visiting Curator: Tracie Hall". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  12. ^ "'A Revolutionary Act': The Power Of A 21st Century Library Card". WBEZ and NPR. February 3, 2020. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
  13. ^ "Bonus Episode: One-on-One with New ALA Executive Director Tracie D. Hall". Dewey Decibel Podcast. American Library Association. February 24, 2020.
  14. ^ LIBRARY LEADER TRACIE D. HALL TO JOIN iSCHOOL FACULTY University of Washington Information School. February 14, 2024.
  15. ^ Hall, Tracie D. (2023) Civic Imagination Stations:Libraries accelerate community transformation American Libraries.
  16. ^ Hall, Tracie D. (2021) Information Redlining: The Urgency to Close the Digital Access and Literacy Divide and the Role of Libraries as Lead Interveners, Journal of Library Administration, 61:4, 484–492
  17. ^ Hall, Tracie D. "Revolutions Where We Stand: We must connect the fights against library and community disinvestment." American Libraries (March 2021).
  18. ^ Hall, Tracie D. "Defending the Fifth Freedom: Protecting the right to read for incarcerated individuals." American Libraries(January 2021).
  19. ^ Hall, Tracie D. "Necessary Trouble: Eradicating Information Poverty." American Libraries. September 2020.
  20. ^ Davis, Denise and Tracie Hall D. Diversity Counts: Demographic Study of the Library Workforce in the United States. American Library Association, 2006; Hall, Tracie D. "Making the Starting Line-Up: Best Practices for Placing Diversity at the Center of Your Library" in Achieving Diversity: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, eds,Barbara I. Dewey and Loretta Parham. Neal-Schuman, 2006; Hall, Tracie D. and Jenifer Grady. "Diversity, Recruitment, and Retention: Going from Lip Service to Foot Patrol." Public Libraries 45 (Jan/Feb 2006):39–46.
  21. ^ Legare, Daniel (April 5, 2022) The urgency of information equity University of Buffalo, Department of Information Science
  22. ^ Information Redlining: The Role of Libraries in Disrupting the Growing Socioeconomic Divide CLA, May 2022.
  23. ^ Hall, Tracie, D. (2023) "Attacks on Libraries Are Attacks on Democracy." Time (September 20, 2023).
  24. ^ Spearman, Joah; Harrison Jr, Louis (2013). "Tracie Hall: Assistant Dean and Librarian at Dominican University". Real Role Models: Successful African Americans Beyond Pop Culture. University of Texas Press. pp. 43–46. ISBN 978-0-292-73679-5.
  25. ^ "With libraries under threat, Literarian Award goes to Watts-raised super-librarian Tracie D. Hall". Los Angeles Times. September 7, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  26. ^ Anderson, Porter (September 7, 2022). "Tracie Hall Receives the National Book Award's Literarian Award". Publishing Perspectives. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  27. ^ "Time 100". Time. April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
  28. ^ "Tracie D. Hall Is Leading Her Fellow ‘Warrior’ Librarians In The Fight Of The Century." Forbes. August 1, 2023.
  29. ^ Roosevelt Institute. Four Freedom Awards. FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION: Tracie Hall, Executive Director, American Library Association., 2023.

External links[edit]

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