Policymakers, academic faculty, scientists, business professionals, philanthropy and nonprofit organizations, and many individuals. There are some folks joining us from my home state of minnesota, which is terrific, so weak clearly have a crosssection of the country that are joining us to discuss the very important topic that we are talking about today. Its my special pleasure to welcome you all. Since 1948, pew has worked to make change by creating Common Ground using data to make a difference in making progress through partnerships. And although our world and the challenges that it faces has changed over 75 years, our commitment and values remain the same. We strive for equity to work with you mentally humility and to have impact. We want to be inclusive, nonpartisan and operate with integrity. Those values shape how we approach all of our work, how we collaborate with each other, and how we engage with our staff, with policymakers, with our partners and with the public. That brings us to what we are here to discuss today. Strengthening democracy in america. Its a goal that inspired our founders and have informed our work for more than 75 years. So, we start today with a conversation with carla, the 14th librarian of congress. In just a few minutes i will sit down with her and we will have a wideranging conversation on how listening, reading, scholarships, facts and open debate are essential to our democracy. We are in institution that looks at data, so the Pew Research Center for survey and americans in 2021 under feelings about democracy and the polling found 50 of adults, well over half of americans are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working. While i very much understand that frustration, i would like to offer a slightly more positive outlook about where we are and where we are going. So ive been privileged to help lead pew for 25 years, including as president and ceo since july of thing. In that time we had our challenges, and that includes trying to continue our work during a global pandemic. But i have lost none of my optimism or support for the values that this Organization Lives by in the 75 year history of public service. And that includes our commitment to nonpartisanship and impact. There is no denying that we live in a fractured local landscape, that means we have a lot of work ahead of us. I understand that difficult problems from threats to diversity, to social inequality, cold divisions can feel absolutely intractable and major challenges protecting 30 of the worlds land and oceans, cannot be solved by one organization, one country or one community. But we can make progress when we follow the facts and use our best science and work with partners. I have seen how Strategic Partnerships and multifaceted approaches can increase impact, build bridges to Diverse Communities and solve problems. I could see how evidencebased policies and nonpartisan communication can create a Common Ground for finding solutions that are creative and durable. And i have seen how fats can become a, a common language that helps people with disparate viewpoints commute kate with each other. Thats why nonpartisan is the cornerstone of everything that we do. We stick to facts because facts dont take sides, facts dont judge, facts dont live in blue states or red states, facts dont leave read social media clips. Facts are necessary to build facts thats essential for democracy. I love big ideas and big ideas can lead to big results, but even big ideas become reality stepbystep and i have seen firsthand how incremental steps can bring enormous positive change. Thats been true in our state policy work from public land, Broadband Access, retirement savings, enhancing access to opioid use disorder and fiscal issues. Thats a kind of factbased work pew staff do every day. Its equally true to strengthen democracy for the best supportive evidencebased election administration, researching the basic american tenant of federalism or planning for our home town of philadelphia will mark americas 250th in 2026. Achieving those goals will require patience, dialogue, humility and inclusion. But the last 75 years have shown us that with every milestone we reach, communities become stronger in peoples lives get better. That has been our storied path and will continue to be our future. Speaking of stories, lets turn to the conversation at hand. Albert einstein said the only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library. And nobody has been a stronger or more effective advocate for libraries and carla hates. President obama appointed carla the 14th librarian of congress and the first woman in africanamerican to lead americas oldest cultural institution. Her love of reading on the library started decades earlier. Born in tallahassee, florida she developed a passion for reading at a young age. She developed he graduated from Roosevelt University and began her professional career as a childrens librarian in the Chicago Public library while still in school. She earned a doctorate from the university of chicago in 1987. She taught at the university of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences from 1987 to 1991 and served two years at the Chicago Public library before being appointed ceo of the Pratt Library in baltimore in 1993. At pratt she greatly expanded digital services, started an Afterschool Program for teenagers and open the first new branch of 30 years. Carla was president of the American Library association from 2003 to 2004 in the first africanamerican to receive the Library Journals i brain of the year award. She was good enough to join us for an interview for one of pews afterthefact podcasts. She called libraries baskins of equal opportunity. She told us the library and is there to give you unbiased access to information, and thats an idea that all of us at pew can understand, appreciate and strive to achieve. Now, it is my very great pleasure to welcome and sit down with carla hayden, librarian of congress. [applause] carla thank you, susan for that lovely introduction. Thats the introduction you want your mother to hear. [laughter] i hope your mother is watching. Carla im sure she has. At 91 she keeps up with a lot of things. You told me when we were chatting just before that today is a 200 23rd anniversary of the library of congress. Yay for that. Its also National Library week and its also pews anniversary, and its also the day we are having this conversation, so that is a lovely group of events and very appropriate for the topic we are talking about. You said libraries are the cornerstone of democracy. Tell us why that matters. Carla libraries are open to everyone. Its one of the few services that they ask you anything about why you want the information, or why you want a book, though sometimes, we want to, thats part of our value, but its open to everyone, free, and some of the values that you talked about, nonpartisan, data driven, all those things are part of what the value of libraries are, and it doesnt matter if you are in a rural area, a city, native american plays, any place you are, a library, you can count on that, and thats when we look at surveys and things people talk about one of the most trusted places in communities is a library. Im going to quote Something Back to you and i will do it a lot this morning because a lot of what you say is on point for the conversation we are having today. You compare bookshelf and libraries to democracies in action because have different books and a range of ideas sitting sidebyside and people can show can freely choose. The idea of informed citizens citizens three feels resident. Hows that shaping the place of libraries in communities today . Carla we used to say, we let the books battle it out on the shelves. And you want to make sure that you do present as many sides as possible to an issue so that people can freely everyone has the right to know, you have the right to choose, and you have the right to and i hope, when we get to talking about book banning in all of the things that are going on now, that you have that right. So what librarians pride themselves in and have since the 1870s in this country when Public Libraries really took over about the same time as Public Education did in this country, that that is what you can do, you can go in and decide for yourself if you want to read something. Lexi mentioned how trusted libraries are and we are talking about trust in many different venues. The Pew Research Center found 78 of adults feel that Public Libraries help them find information that is trustworthy and reliable. I dont know too many institutions that have numbers that good. You talk about some of the challenges libraries are facing today. So how important is it that libraries can really operate as a safe space . Carla in the world we know, not only libraries, but the staff in the library. Librarians have one of the strongest stereotypes of any profession. Mary and the librarian. We mention this a bit, we look for cartoon depictions of librarians and commercials, but think about it, you seen some of the commercials where you stand in the library and the laboring is looking, like a library and should, and there is a new product in the librarian takes a piece of that and goes wild. Just dances on the table and all that stuff, and you say, i want that gun because of the librarian goes wild, whats it going to do for me. So, you are starting out with a trusted place, Staff Members that you know are there for you, and one of the new books, cloud cuckoo and is set in the library on the whole theme of people are nodding because i read it, i admit, i stayed up all night, i skipped some parts, but because it was so evocative of what happens in libraries all the time, so you have people that are there to help you, they are not in it for the money, but they really want to help you. Lets lets talk about the different ways libraries function in the community. Is an Interesting Data point. The American LibraryAssociation Says 90 of libraries help people complete Online Government forms. That is a startling statistic. Generally not only is that interesting, but what happened over the last three years . Libraries, like all of our institutions were terribly disruptive during the pandemic, what kind of innovation may be emerged from that . Carla i know you said its egovernment when you think of egovernment, people need to be able to sit at a unit, at a large screen that they can book for two or three hours to fill out an application to have printing the first 10 pages are usually free. In all of this, there are so many communities, especially rural areas, especially because we dont think about what the challenges are where people dont have the Broadband Access or the equipment to sit and turn in and to have that guide on the side to help them with the application to do that. I was in a situation where section eight renewal was announced, two week timeframe, it was all online, and we knew in the library in Baltimore City that we had to train our staffs to look at the form, have dedicated computers for the onslaught that we knew was going to be there. At 10 00 people were lined up at the library and we had staff to help during the pandemic. That was one of the hardest parts at first for Public Libraries in particular because in times of crisis and in need, thats where people go to get information and its a safe haven. So not being able to physically help the doors open when people would have been there, think about the switch to Virtual Learning and all the communities where the computer rooms and libraries were packed with young people and people that needed information. First thing libraries did was to say, we have staff that are good at researchers and tracking, they became the contact tracers, the librarians and then the aspect of the access to the internet. They took their mobile units, the bookmobiles and now their mobile units into communities so that people could connect to wifi. Then they started loading out hotspots so that people could have wifi access in several libraries received grants to put the antennas on their facilities so that the neighborhood could have wifi. Librarians got real creative, we always are. That was a place i was very impressed in, and upper michigan. They have a section beyond books where you can check out a sewing machine, you can check out musical instruments. The one that stopped me was traffic cones. At first i thought they were construction, in the library and they said no we let people check out these cones because what if you are having construction done at your house or something, and teaching young people to drive, and all these things. Libraries were already doing those types of things so the pandemic really kicked it into gear and the main thing that is continuing on that we had started in all types of libraries, the library of congress to, virtual programming and doing storytime and putting it up and using the media to be able to broadcast out. s of those things will continue now . Yes i got very popular, youtube and all of these things. A lot of these types of things are still going to continue on. Thats fantastic, one of the things you have done in your role as librarian of congresss focus on connecting with people and their stories. That really resonates with me in the work we do at pew so maybe you could talk about why that has been such an important focus and tell us one of the more memorable stories you have come across. History is storytelling. Being able to have individual stories as well, not just the movements or the things we know about world war ii for instance. You can learn all about the battles and everything but what about the veterans, what about the people who served . At the library of congress weve been able to be involved with the veterans history project it is an oral history project for veterans. They are telling their individual stories, and it is one of the most memorable aspects of that, the family of veterans had given their oral history before and passed. They wanted more information about his service and they were able to go on the database and look and find someone that had served with their father. And connect. And that, being able to not only value everyone stories because one of the things with veterans, we train people to interview like your grandfather, your grandmother. It is great for it and it really took off during the pandemic because that was an activity that people had and we put that up. You will find that people say i didnt do much, i drove the truck that brought in the food. For the troops. But know that his service. But those individual stories and valuing the person to is a big part. So not only are you focused on the connections that you are seeing, but it helps people connect to each other. In a really fundamental way. Its interesting because we are all increasingly siloed these days and i am going to cite a Pew Research Fact nearly half of both republicans and democrats a political conversation with people they disagree with, it is incredibly stressful and frustrating. How can knowledge and some of the work that libraries do help people facilitate those conversations and make them less difficult . We try. And we have author programs, bringing in authors and having questions and answers and having people from different backgrounds that they look around and say we are here to hear the same author so you are already creating some type of common bond in one sense. And then having the discussion and letting them think about new ideas. Thats the whole importance of reading in the beginning was about, you could get empathy hopefully. Good to see what someone else might have felt or feel. And thats why it is important to have these discussions in a nonthreatening place, libraries have been that ever since ive been involved. For some pretty heated discussions, questions and answers can get heated, but its also a civil place for discussion. So you and i chatted a little bit about this before we came on, some of the challenges that libraries are facing today and trying to hold onto that value of being an open place for discussion about different ideas . Especially for young people. So many young people need to have that place sometimes outside of their own family, and to be able to have that trusted adult, to have a place where they are maybe not bullied. In the south side of chicago one of the first jobs you mentioned as a childrens librarian, a little storefront in this little guy named leonard. He had a lot of issues. Leonard was 10 and he would come in and he was being bullied and he knew he could come in and he would sit by my desk. And i thought i have to put letter to work now. He comes every day. This was back with the card catalog and stuff i would let him sort the cards. He found a place. Other staff. It was wonderful to see when he got about 12 and he was feeling much better and he would wave at me through the window. I was like ok leonard. You are all right. You know you can always come back when you need to. So young people in particular need that safe space defined out about others and find out about themselves. Librarians have been called the feisty fighters for freedom. They have tshirts. Tracy hall who is the executive director of the American Library association was just named one of time magazines most influential people of 2023. Because she talks about Library Access as an equity issue. And you have to have the informed citizenship, thats why those institutions were built. I have to quote something. Not word for word, but alberto bagwell and his history greeting has a chapter on forbidden reading. And the start of the chapter has a photograph of a woman who you could tell she is africanamerican, she might recently have been a slave and she has a book. And he says in their as tyrant slaveowners and dictators and other illic