American Libraries

About American Libraries

American Libraries is the flagship magazine of the American Library Association (ALA), published in Chicago, Illinois. First published in 1970 as a continuation of the long-running ALA Bulletin, it serves the library profession with news, analysis and features on libraries and librarianship. The magazine is sent to approximately 58,000 individuals and organizations worldwide, and its content is available online to the public at americanlibrariesmagazine.org.

From the ALA Bulletin to a Modern Magazine

American Libraries was first published in 1970 as a continuation of the ALA Bulletin, which had served as the Association's official publication since 1907. The rebranding marked a shift from an internal association bulletin to a full-fledged professional magazine, reflecting the growth and growing public profile of American librarianship in the postwar decades.

The lineage gives the magazine one of the longest continuous publishing histories in American professional journalism: more than a century of uninterrupted service to the library field when the Bulletin years are counted. That continuity has made its archive a record of how libraries, and the profession that sustains them, have evolved across generations.

The American Library Association

The magazine's publisher, the American Library Association, was established on October 6, 1876, when 103 librarians and advocates assembled at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for a national library conference. The gathering was largely organized by Melvil Dewey, who used the occasion to present his Dewey Decimal Classification system. The new Association set up its headquarters in Boston before settling in Chicago in 1909, where it has remained ever since.

ALA is the oldest and largest library association in the world, and its history is intertwined with the development of the modern library: the standardization of catalog card sizes in 1877, the founding of the first library school at Columbia College in 1887, and the accreditation of library education programs that made the master's degree the profession's standard credential.

ALA Today

Today the Association counts around 46,564 members as of 2025, with a headquarters in Chicago and a Washington, D.C., office that opened in 1945 to facilitate dialogue with legislators. Daniel Montgomery serves as executive director and Maria McCauley as president. The Association celebrated its sesquicentennial in 2026, 150 years after the Philadelphia founding conference, with Chicago's mayor proclaiming October 6 as American Library Association Day in the city.

American Libraries functions as the Association's primary voice to its membership and the public. ALA members receive the magazine as a benefit of membership, and its pages carry the news, debates and professional developments that define the field — from intellectual freedom battles to funding fights to technological change.

Publishing Cadence

The magazine is published six times yearly in print, plus a digital-only July/August issue and occasional digital supplements. Among the supplements is the annual State of America's Libraries report, a widely cited overview of trends in library funding, usage and public support. The magazine is sent to approximately 58,000 individuals and organizations worldwide.

The hybrid print-digital cadence reflects the economics of association publishing: a print edition that anchors the membership benefit, supplemented by digital-only content that can respond more quickly to news. All content is available online to the public, extending the magazine's reach well beyond the ALA membership rolls.

Annual Features

The magazine publishes several signature annual features. The "Library Design Showcase" highlights new and innovative library architecture and design projects, documenting how the physical library continues to reinvent itself. "Emerging Leaders" spotlights the ALA's professional development program for new librarians, introducing the next generation of the profession to the magazine's readers.

Library technology expert Marshall Breeding contributes the annual "Library Systems Report," a closely followed assessment of the library technology industry — the vendors, mergers and product developments that shape how libraries manage their collections and serve their patrons. Together, the annuals give the magazine a rhythm of tentpole coverage that readers anticipate each year.

The Newsmaker Feature

Each issue of American Libraries includes a Newsmaker feature, an interview with a prominent figure whose work intersects with libraries, literacy and the freedom to read. Past subjects have included Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, Dolly Parton, Emilio Estevez, Al Gore, Stan Lee, George Takei, Alice Walker, Pharrell Williams, Jacqueline Woodson and Debbie Harry, among many others.

The feature serves a dual purpose: it brings star power to the magazine's pages while giving prominent voices a platform to speak about libraries, reading and censorship. In an era of book challenges and library funding battles, the Newsmaker interviews have become statements of cultural solidarity with the profession.

The State of America's Libraries Report

The annual State of America's Libraries report, published as a digital supplement, compiles data and analysis on the condition of the nation's libraries: public, academic and school libraries alike. It tracks funding trends, circulation and visit numbers, the state of library staffing, and the ongoing challenges to library materials.

The report is one of the most widely referenced documents in American librarianship, cited by journalists, policymakers and advocates. By publishing it, the magazine positions itself not just as a chronicler of the profession but as a producer of the data that shapes public understanding of libraries.

The Scoop and Digital Presence

Beyond the magazine itself, American Libraries maintains a website and the blog The Scoop, extending its coverage online with news updates, commentary and multimedia. The digital operation allows the publication to cover fast-moving stories — legislative developments, natural disasters affecting libraries, breaking news in the book world — on a timeline the print schedule cannot match.

The open availability of the magazine's content online reflects the profession's values: librarians are in the business of access, and their flagship publication practices what the field preaches. The website has become a daily destination for library workers and a resource for the general public seeking to understand the issues facing libraries.

Advocacy and the Profession

The magazine's journalism unfolds against a backdrop of sustained advocacy. ALA and its members have fought for library funding at the federal, state and local levels, defended the freedom to read against book bans and challenges, and promoted libraries as essential democratic infrastructure — repositories of memory, arenas of debate and enduring instruments of democratic life.

American Libraries covers these fights from the inside, reporting on legislation, court cases and grassroots campaigns while also documenting the everyday work of librarians: story times and reference desks, makerspaces and digital literacy classes. That combination of advocacy journalism and professional service writing defines its editorial character.

Legacy

Across more than five decades under its current title — and more than a century counting the Bulletin — American Libraries has been the profession's journal of record. It has chronicled the card catalog's replacement by the online catalog, the arrival of the internet in public libraries, the e-book revolution and the contemporary battles over intellectual freedom.

For its sesquicentennial in 2026, the magazine published "55 Moments That Redefined Librarianship," a retrospective tracing how libraries and the profession have intertwined with the American story itself — as repositories of memory, arenas of debate and enduring instruments of democratic life. The feature drew on the magazine's own deep archive, a century and a half of reporting on the field.

As the flagship magazine of the world's oldest and largest library association, it remains the connective tissue of American librarianship: the publication that tells tens of thousands of library workers, in every state, that they belong to a shared profession with a shared mission. Few professional magazines can claim so direct a relationship with the identity of the field they serve.