Sir Roly Keating has been Chief Executive of the British Library since September 2012.

In 2015 he launched Living Knowledge, an 8-year strategy based on a refreshed statement of vision to ’make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone for research, inspiration and enjoyment.’ Under Living Knowledge the Library has seen a major expansion of cultural and learning activities, including landmark exhibitions on Magna Carta, Harry Potter and the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms; new pan-UK partnerships including the Living Knowledge Network of public and national libraries and the successful Business & IP Centre national network, which now includes over 80 centers across the UK; major digital initiatives including Save Our Sounds, to preserve the UK’s at-risk audio heritage, and Living with Machines, a major AI-based research collaboration between historians and computer scientists; and an award of planning permission for a major extension of the Library’s London building at St Pancras. 

Knowledge Matters, launched in 2023, sets the Library on a course to 2030. It deepens the Library’s commitments to accessibility, sustainability and expanding its reach across the UK, with new public library partnerships including the digital platform LibraryOn, and a programme of capital projects in the North of England, including the renewal of the campus at Boston Spa and a project to create an entirely new public space in the historic Temple Works building in the heart of Leeds – ’British Library North’.

Roly joined the Library after a long and successful career as a program-maker and broadcasting executive at the BBC, where he played key roles in the launch of its digital channels, before moving on to become Controller of BBC Two and Director of Archive Content, with editorial oversight of the BBC's online services including BBC iPlayer.

Roly is a Trustee of the Clore Leadership Programme and a former Board member of Channel 4 and the Barbican Arts Centre. He chairs the Steering Committee for the 5-year AHRC-funded research programme Towards a National Collection.

Roly holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Lincoln, Warwick and York. In 2023 he was knighted for services to Literature in the New Year Honours List and appointed Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the Government of France. 

Dr. Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016.

Dr. Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to lead the national library, was nominated to the position by President Barack Obama on February 24, 2016, and her nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate later that year on July 13.

Her vision for America’s national library, connecting all Americans to the Library of Congress, has redefined and modernized the Library’s mission: to engage, inspire and inform Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity.

During her tenure, Dr. Hayden has prioritized efforts to make the Library and its unparalleled collections more accessible to the public. Through her social media presence, events and activities, she has introduced new audiences to many of the Library’s treasures – from Frederick Douglass’ papers, to the contents of President Abraham Lincoln’s pockets on the night of his assassination, to James Madison’s crystal flute made famous by Lizzo. With the support of a $15 million grant from Mellon Foundation, in 2021, Dr. Hayden launched the Of the People initiative, which is creating new opportunities for more Americans, especially Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander and other communities of color underrepresented in the Library’s collections, to engage with the Library and add their perspectives to the Library’s collections.

Prior to her current role, Dr. Hayden was the CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, since 1993. She was the deputy commissioner and chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library from 1991 to 1993, an assistant professor of library and information science at the University of Pittsburgh from 1987 to 1991 and library services coordinator for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago from 1982 to 1987. She began her career with the Chicago Public Library as the young adult services coordinator from 1979 to 1982 and as a library associate and children’s librarian from 1973 to 1979.

Dr. Hayden was president of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. In 1995, she was the first African American to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award in recognition of her outreach services at the Pratt Library, which included an after-school center for Baltimore teens offering homework assistance and college and career counseling. Hayden received a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.

Among her numerous civic and professional memberships and awards, Dr. Hayden is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Jesse J. Holland is an award-winning writer, journalist, and television personality, who is a former Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Residence at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. A longtime Race & Ethnicity writer for The Associated Press, as well as serving as a White House, Supreme Court and Congressional reporter, Jesse was one of the few reporters to be a credentialed member of all three members of the major Washington press corps.

He is the author of several award-winning books, including The Black Panther: Who Is The Black Panther?, The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slavery Inside The White House, Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Finn’s Story, and Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C. 

Currently, Jesse serves as an assistant professor at the School of Media & Public Affairs at George Washington University.

Paula M. Krebs is the Executive Director of the Modern Language Association, the largest scholarly organization in the humanities, with 20,000 members from more than 100 countries. Her role includes national advocacy work for the humanities and humanities education, and she is currently the president of the National Humanities Alliance. She has written on humanities issues for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, CNN, the Washington Post, Slate, and more. She previously served as English professor and department chair at Wheaton College and dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Bridgewater State University. 

The first American Trust for the British Library (ATBL) David N. Redden Lecture was delivered in 2019 in honor of the ATBL’s then-chairman, the late David Redden. The son of a diplomat, Redden, born in 1949, traveled the world, living in China, Israel, and the UK before arriving in the United States. Redden was a collector himself, but is known primarily for his distinguished career as an auctioneer and Vice-Chairman at Sotheby’s—later Sotheby’s Worldwide Chairman of Books and Manuscripts. He specialized in the sale of books, manuscripts, and other collectibles. Some of Redden’s many notable sales privately or with Sotheby’s include the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ estate, and rocks brought back from NASA trips to the moon. In his professional capacity, Redden taught buyers to see the value in both the seemingly mundane artifacts of everyday life, such as comic books, and highlighted the sublimity of documents, books, and items connected to American and world history. At the ATBL, his exuberance, passion, and intellectual curiosity set the tone for the ATBL as a vibrant organization in step with the British Library, one of the world’s greatest research libraries, and its mission.

The David Redden Conversation honors the spirit of convening characteristic not only of David Redden’s personal gregariousness and generosity as a host, but also implicit in Redden’s work as an auctioneer and collector, illuminating the historical significance of objects or texts to the public. Framed as a dialogue between an invited panelist and an invited moderator, the David Redden Conversation selects a central topic of relevance to the collections of the British Library or to bibliophilic circles. Such topics might include endangered archives (collection support in the midst of under-resourced areas or in conflict zones), collecting ethics, that nature of digital literacy and digital preservation, or other such concepts. A dialogue format gives room for multiple voices to propose and respond to ideas, and mirrors the importance of interpersonal connection to all facets of David Redden’s life.