The Hawaiʻi Library Association (HLA) is a professional organization for Hawaii's librarians and library workers created "to promote library service and librarianship in Hawai'i." It is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawai'i. The Hawai'i Library Association was organized at a meeting of 20 county librarians on January 16–17, 1922.[1] Clara Hemenway, director of the University of Hawaiʻi Library was the first president.[2][3] The association's first informal meeting was in 1922; Margaret Newman was the first elected president at their first official meeting in 1924.[3] HLA became a chapter of the American Library Association at that same meeting, in March 1924.[4]
HLA publishes the HLA Newsletter (first published in 1943 as the News Bulletin), the Hawai‘i Library Association Journal (starting in 1944), and Current Hawaiiana.[4] HLA's Children and Youth Section sponsors the annual Nēnē Award, a children's book award selected by Hawaii's elementary and middle school children.[5]
