A Brief History of the ALA

By kpseastead

  • Founding of the ALA

    90 men and 13 women attended the founding of the ALA

  • First ALA President

    First ALA President
    Justin Winsor

  • Dewey Decimal Classification Published

    Created by Melvin Dewey, first published in 1876

  • ALA Council Established

  • Library of Congress Classification Created

    Invented by Herbert Putnam

  • Catalog Section Founded

  • Superintendent of Documents Classification

    Published in 1904, SuDocs was in development in 1895.

  • First Female ALA President

    First Female ALA President
    Theresa West Elmendorf

  • Governing Documents Established

    Library Bill of Rights and the ALA Code of Ethics were adopted in 1939

  • Division of Cataloging and Classification

  • The Division for Children and Young People

    Later becomes the Association for Library Service to Children

  • RTSD Established

    Resources and Technical Services Division consists of the DCC and other sections

  • First National Library Week

    First week established to celebrate and promote library use

  • Knapp School Libraries Project Began

    Designed to update and upgrade school libraries

  • Office for Intellectual Freedom Established

  • Knapp School Libraries Project Ended

  • First African-American ALA President

    First African-American ALA President
    Clara Stanton Jones

  • CC:DA Established

    Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access. Addressed cataloging codes and rules, precursor to ALCTS

  • RTSD Changes Name to ALCTS

    Association for Library Collections & Technical Services

  • CC:DA Shifts Focus to RDA from AACR2

  • CCS Changes Name to CaMMS

  • First Digital Learning Day

    American Association of School Librarians was a core partner in the effort of encouraging technological learning in schools