Over the last few months I’ve spent a lot of time quietly worrying about the future of the NFR under the Trump administration (among other concerns, the National Film Preservation Act is up for renewal next year). As I’ve struggled to remain optimistic that the NFR would just fly under the radar as it did during the first Trump term, I woke up this morning to some disheartening news. Last night Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden was fired via email from the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office on behalf of Trump. No explanation was given.
As easy as it would be for me to turn this into a catastrophizing post about what this means for the future (or expounding on what a cowardly move it is to fire someone via email on a Thursday night), I am choosing instead to focus on Dr. Hayden’s positive contributions to the Library of Congress. After a 40-plus year run serving libraries in Chicago and Baltimore, Hayden was nominated by Barack Obama to become Librarian of Congress in February 2016. With her official confirmation that July (and subsequent swearing in that September), Carla Hayden became the first woman and first African-American to serve as the Librarian of Congress. During her nine years as Librarian, Dr. Hayden focused on making the Library of Congress’ content more accessible to the public, particularly to underrepresented groups. Part of this accessibility outreach was making more of the Library available online, as well as expanding the Library’s social media presence. It was through the latter that we got that time Lizzo played James Madison’s crystal flute. Remember that? That was awesome.
But of course, I am eternally grateful to Carla Hayden’s input selecting films for the National Film Registry. Her first group of inductees in December 2016 was filled with so many iconic films that it inspired me to start this blog (“The Breakfast Club“! “The Lion King“! “Paris Is Burning!“). Her subsequent selections have been a healthy balance of perennial crowd-pleasers, long-lost actualities, and underrated gems. In addition to all the films I’ve gotten to revisit thanks to Dr. Hayden’s selections, I’ve also had the pleasure of discovering such films as “Eve’s Bayou“, “Pariah“, “Wanda“, “She’s Gotta Have It“, “Time and Dreams“, “Boys Don’t Cry“, “¡Alambrista!“, “Love & Basketball“, and many many more. And thanks to her, we live in a world where “Pink Flamingos” is on a government-sanctioned movie list.
Whatever Carla Hayden plans on doing next, I know it will be in the service of promoting our national heritage, lifelong learning, diverse voices, and so many other things this administration seems determined to purge. I thank Dr. Hayden for giving the Library of Congress what I call “the campsite treatment”; she left it better than how she found it.
The Horse's Head 
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