Georgia Library Association


The Georgia Library Association is a professional organization for Georgia's librarians and library workers. It is headquartered in Savannah, Georgia. It was founded as The Georgia Library Club by members of the Young Men's Library of Atlanta and Georgia Federation of Women's Clubs. The organization changed its name to the Georgia Library Association at its first business meeting. GLAs first president was Anne Wallace, elected at the organization's first meeting May 31, 1897, in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Georgia Library Association was open only to White librarians until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The American Library Association asked each state chapter to recertify itself by 1956 and required that each state have a single, integrated chapter. The Georgia Library Association did not recertify and lost their chapter status.
E. J. Josey was a Black Georgia librarian and ALA member. When he noted in 1964 that ALA officers attended the GLA conference, a conference he could not attend as an ALA member, he drafted a resolution forbidding ALA officers from participating in the activities of segregated ALA chapters. Josey became the first Black librarian to receive membership in GLA. He founded the Black Caucus of ALA in 1970 and was president of the American Library Association from 1984 through 1985.
GLA has published Georgia Library Quarterly since 1964.