Nationality American | Occupation Librarian | |
Born May 9, 1929 ( 1929-05-09 ) Rome, Georgia Known for President of the American Library Association
Director of the District of Columbia Public Library (1974-1997) Died 22 August 2004, Washington, D.C., United States | ||
Hardy Rogers Franklin (May 9, 1929 – August 22, 2004) was an African-American librarian and served as President of the American Library Association from 1993 to 1994.
Franklin received a bachelor's degree from Morehouse College and began a career as a teacher and librarian in Conyers, Georgia. He served as a librarian in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1955 in Okinawa, Japan. He received a master's degree in library science from Atlanta University in 1956 and moved to New York to worked at the Brooklyn Public Library. In 1971, after graduating from Rutgers University with a doctorate in library science, he taught at Queens College.
Franklin moved to Washington, D.C. in 1974 to lead the District of Columbia Public Library. In DC, he led an effort to dedicate a mural to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and extended the library's online catalog to high schools and the University of the District of Columbia. Franklin established community libraries, an arts library and a weekly "dial-a-story" program.