I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

But I will bear true faith and allegiance to the sea that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

So help me God, so help me God.

Welcome to the Oath. I'm Chuck Rosenberg and I am honored to be your host for another compelling conversation with a fascinating guest from the World of Public Service.

Our guest this week is Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, born in Tallahassee, Florida.

Carla grew up in Queens and in Chicago. Her parents were both talented musicians. Her father taught music at Florida A&M University.

But Carla, by her own admission, did not have the music gene, what she did have was a love of knowledge and of reading.

After graduating from Roosevelt University in Chicago and while looking for work, she became in her own words an accidental librarian.

A friend gave her a lead on a job in a public library and that fortuitous tip led to a career in librarianship, including a doctorate in library science from the graduate library school at the University of Chicago,

a teaching post at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Science and leadership roles in the public library systems in both Chicago and Baltimore.

Indeed, in Baltimore, as executive director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Carla led that city's magnificent public library system for almost a quarter of a century and was widely praised and properly so for keeping the libraries open in the wake of riots that shook Baltimore in 2015, following the death of an African American library.

She was the first to be a member of an African American man, Freddie Gray, in police custody.

In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Carla to serve as the 14th librarian of Congress. Upon her confirmation by the Senate, she became the first woman and the first African American ever to hold that prestigious post.

Congress is a crown jewel. It dates back to 1800 and one of its first large acquisitions came from the personal library of Thomas Jefferson. The Library of Congress was originally housed in the U.S. Capitol building, Fires in 1814 and 1851, the first set by the British, the second, an accident, and a burgeoning collection required that the library move to its own building.

Today, its astonishing collection is housed in numerous buildings, including the Jefferson building, which contains the breathtaking main reading room completed in 1897.

The Library of Congress today has more than 171 million items, including 32 million catalog books and 470 languages, 61 million manuscripts, 15 million photographs, 5 million maps, the papers of 23 presidents, an extraordinarily rare and precious books.

Including an original Gutenberg Bible and the Lincoln Bible. In fact, when Carla Hayden took the oath of office for the post that she now holds, she took that oath on the original Lincoln Bible.

She shares in this episode a wonderful story about that day, that Bible, her mom, and the oath.

The Library of Congress is a palace to knowledge. It is one of the most important cultural institutions in the United States and in the world. The person privileged to run it is Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress.

Dr. Carla Hayden, welcome to the oath.

Thank you so much, the pleasure.

What's the pleasure to have you with us, the librarian of Congress, what a cool job.

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