In the Archives: the 1976 ALA Conference – American Library Association Archives

The celebration of the 1976 Centennial Conference produced various materials that are housed at the ALA Archives. Planning documents, correspondence, audio recordings, photographs, programs, and publications make up the bulk of the materials on the conference in the archives, giving researchers a clear view of the work and effort put into the event. The records can primarily be found in the Allie B. Martin Papers, the Executive Director office files, and the Conference Services records.

Meeting announcement and agenda for the Fair-in-the-Park event, from record series 5/1/28, Box 1.

Files from the centennial in the Allie B. Martin Papers.

Press release announcing poet Gwendolyn Brooks delivering an original poem for the centennial, from record series 5/1/14, Box 2.

These records detail a thorough history of the centennial celebration, perhaps more so than any other ALA milestone conferences. The most interesting aspects of the records is not so much the details of the event itself, but the hopes and readiness to more forward past troubled times that it represented within the Association. In reflection of the ambitions of the 1976 Centennial Conference and the Association’s then recent history, former ALA President, Edward G. Holley wrote:

After several years of trauma and retrenchment, the Centennial Conference theme, ‘Celebrate,’ with its mixture of nostalgia and solid intellectual substance, culture events and schmaltz, challenge to implement goals and just plain fun, may be the right combination for the ALA’s hundredth year. [1]

File from the Executive Director’s Office Subject File.

File from the Patricia R. Harris Papers.

Edward G. Holley, ALA at 100, American Library Association (Chicago, 1976); pg. 31.