President Donald Trump’s administration fired Carla Hayden from her job as Librarian of Congress on Thursday. She was the first woman and African American person to head the world’s largest library.

Hayden’s 10-year term was set to expire in 2026. GBH spoke with Hayden the week before her firing, where she spoke out against book bans and talked about the landscape of information access.

She also said she was uncertain about whether she’d be reappointed or allowed to finish her term.

“I would be honored to be able to finish out my term that I have now, and I’m really interested to see how it would turn out in terms of reappointment or possibility of that,” Hayden told GBH News Rooted host Paris Alston.

A conservative advocacy group called the American Accountability Foundation accused her of being “woke, anti-Trump, and promoting trans-ing kids.”

Hayden was fired in a two-sentence email, according to the Associated Press, which read: “Carla, On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

The Library of Congress, founded in 1800, includes 181 million items from books to films to historical artifacts. The library works with members of Congress seeking information but is also open to any member of the public looking for a book, working on academic research, or looking into their family history.

If information about Black history becomes less readily accessible to the public, Hayden said, it could shape the way Americans view the present day.

“What’s at risk is a loss of a more complete picture of the history of this country, and the people who have toiled, contributed to it, and have lived in it,” Hayden told GBH News last week. “And when you don’t have a complete picture of history, it almost makes you blind to context, to what’s going on right now, and what could happen in the future.”

The job of head librarian was a lifetime appointment until about five months after Hayden’s appointment — a change that kicked off some misinformation. She was part of a group of librarians who suggested that Congress do away with lifetime appointments for the job.

“The library community recommended that the Library of Congress position, because of the changing nature of libraries, so much is going on, that you have the option of a renewal of a term. That you actually have a term, 10 years, and it can be renewed,” she told Alston last week in an interview at GBH’s Brighton newsroom. “Libraries might not be the types of institutions where a lifetime appointment is appropriate.

There were conspiracy theories about, well, the first woman and the first Black person, and now they’re going to put a term limit on it. I remember, it was out there.”

Hayden is the first professional librarian to lead the Library of Congress in about 70 years. She was previously chief executive officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and spent one year as president of the American Library Association. She was the first African American to win the Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award.

Hayden told GBH she was concerned about efforts to ban books, especially restricting access to young people.

“This is part of really a realization that ideas can be very powerful,” Hayden told GBH’s Under the Radar host Callie Crossley last week, citing historical attempts to ban enslaved Black people from reading the Bible or giving them a limited version of the book. “The latest iteration of trying to limit what people have access to in terms of ideas is part of a historical thread of looking at what would happen if people that you might be trying to control or influence were able to get other information that is different from what you are presenting.”

She said she sees those efforts as part of a larger movement.

“This is not just about this one book, it’s not just about what’s in a particular library,” she said. “It is part of a larger cultural discussion, argument, whatever you want to call it, but it’s not just about that book.”

There are measures in place for parents who do not want their children reading certain books, Hayden said, and librarians in some places can help parents monitor what their children are checking out.

“What’s interesting is when a group of adults are saying to another group of adults: ‘Your child can’t read this,’” she said. “You might not have that authority to determine what another parent’s child can read. They might want their child to read that book.”

Hayden said she is encouraged to see more parents getting involved in their communities over library access and book bans.

“A positive thing is that we are aware, and people are saying, ‘No, we want our young people to have access to these books and materials,’” she said. “And in a world where there are very few instances now where some parents feel they have any control, they’re standing up. They are going to library board meetings that could be very dull affairs before. Now you’re seeing more people coming and counterbalancing some of these efforts.

And so, this awareness of, ‘Here’s another aspect of our community life that needs to be protected’ is a good thing.”

Hayden is also known for some memorable pop culture moments, including when she invited singer, rapper and flutist Lizzo to play a crystal flute once owned by President James Madison at the library in 2022.

“You could see a direct connection with her saying that, posting that, and being at that concert with the flute, the crystal flute, James Madison’s flute — with people typing in, what else does the Library of Congress have? And that’s what we’ve been doing more of,” Hayden said.

Since her firing became public late last Thursday night, Hayden has not yet issued any public statements.

Paris Alston, Callie Crossley, Diego Lopez, and Andrea Asuaje of the GBH News staff contributed reporting. Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report. The editor of this newsletter was Ellen London.