The North Carolina Library Association (NCLA) is a professional organization for North Carolina's librarians and library workers. It is headquartered in High Point, North Carolina. It was founded on May 14, 1904, in Greensboro, North Carolina.[1] The original organization had thirty-two charter members and Mrs. Annie Smith Ross from the Carnegie Library in Charlotte was the association's first president.[1]
North Carolina had separate associations for black and white librarians until 1955.[2] The North Carolina Negro Library Association (est. 1934) was the first black library association chapter in the ALA.[3][4][5] The American Library Association decided to only allow one library association chapter per state, and as a result NCLA agreed to admit black members in 1954 and the two associations merged in 1955.[3][6]
^ abWiegand, Wayne A. (2017). ""Any Ideas?": The American Library Association and the Desegregation of Public Libraries in the American South". Libraries: Culture, History, and Society. 1 (1). The Pennsylvania State University Press: 1. doi:10.5325/libraries.1.1.0001. ISSN2473-0343.
^Poole, Alex H. (2018). ""Could My Dark Hands Break through the Dark Shadow?": Gender, Jim Crow, and Librarianship during the Long Freedom Struggle, 1935–1955". The Library Quarterly. 88 (4). University of Chicago Press: 348–374. doi:10.1086/699269. ISSN0024-2519.
