
NANCY KRANICH
Nancy Kranich served as President of the American Library Association in 2000-2001, focusing on the role of libraries in democracies. A tireless champion of the public’s information rights, Kranich has spoken out against censorship, filtering, privatization, and other attempts to limit public access to vital information. While President, Kranich led ALA’s Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) lawsuit against the government and she attended both the District and Supreme Court hearings. Prior to her Presidency, she spearheaded ALA's freedom of information and Internet filtering advocacy initiatives, formed the Coalition on Government Information, and established the James Madison Awards honoring champions of the public's right to know. She has testified several times before Congress, attended annual legislative days at the state and national levels, and participated in White House briefings on a number of issues.
Kranich has served on a number of ALA committees that deal with intellectual freedom and information policy issues. Currently, she chairs the Legislation Assembly and the Committee on Legislation Copyright Subcommittee and serves on the ALA Committee on Legislation. In addition, Kranich recently founded and chairs the ALA Center for Civic Life Advisory Committee and the Libraries Foster Civic Engagement Membership Initiative Group. Previously she chaired the IFC, leading the Association’s efforts to oppose several provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and promote privacy. In that role, she launched the ALA Privacy Tool Kit and revised the Libraries and the Internet Tool Kit. She also chaired the IFC’s Subcommittee on Media Diversity, which published Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries: Strategies and Actions.
Much of Kranich’s library career was based at New York University, where, as Associate Dean of Libraries, she managed NYU’s libraries, press, and media services. She also worked in public libraries in Bridgeport and Windsor, CT, and Madison, WI. After retiring from NYU, Kranich authored: The Information Commons: A Public Policy Report as a Senior Research Fellow at the Free Expression Policy Project in New York. Prior to moving to New Jersey, Kranich lived and worked for several years as a civic librarian in State College, PA, fostering civic engagement, consulting with libraries and policy organizations, serving on the public library board, and lecturing at Penn State, UW-Milwaukee (online), Long Island University, and other universities. Now at Rutgers University, Kranich splits her time between teaching Library and Information Science and working as Special Projects Librarian.
Kranich has appeared on the Today Show, the C-Span Washington Journal, Bill Moyers’ NOW and National Public Radio. She has conducted hundreds of presentations and media interviews and written extensively on such topics as information policy, civic engagement, scholarly communication, censorship, democracy and advocacy. Her notable publications include: “What’s Daddy’s Roommate Doing in Wasilla?” The Nation; “Libraries as Universal Service Providers,” Benton Foundation Universal Service Project, (2007); “Libraries and Civic Engagement,” The Library and Book Trade Annual 2012; “Academic Libraries as Hubs for Deliberative Democracy,” Journal of Public Deliberation (2010); Libraries and Democracy: The Cornerstones of Liberty, ALA (2001); “The Impact of the USA PATRIOT Act on Free Expression,” Free Expression Policy Project, (2003); and “Civic Partnerships: The Role of Libraries in Promoting Civic Engagement” (2005).
Kranich is Treasurer of the National Security Archive in Washington and judges Project Censored's Most Underreported Stories of the Year. She has worked internationally to advance libraries and democracy in Eastern Europe and to promote universal service and information commons in France, China and Taiwan. In 2011, she helped plan and lead the workshop, Beyond Books: News, Literacy and Democracy for America’s Libraries, which asked what’s possible when you bring together journalists and librarians. An active proponent of dialogue and deliberation, she served on the board of the Kettering Foundation’s National Issues Forum Institute (NIFI) and chaired the NIFI local affiliate in State College, PA.
Kranich earned a master's degree and studied for her doctorate in Public Administration from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service, and an M.A. in Library Science and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin--Madison.