Tamika Barnes, Becky Calzada Vie to Lead ALA

The American Library Association announced November 6 that Tamika Barnes and Becky Calzada are candidates to become ALA’s 2027–2028 president. The winner will serve on ALA Council, succeeding current ALA president Sam Helmick of Iowa City Public Library (2025–2026) and president-elect Maria McCauley of Cambridge (Mass.) Public Library (2026–2027).

Barnes, an associate dean at Georgia State University and former member of the ALA Executive Board and ALA Council, is president-elect of the Georgia Library Association and will lead GLA in 2026–2027. A recipient of the Black Caucus of ALA Library Advocacy Award, Barnes also is a library senior fellow at the University of California–Los Angeles and a Leading Change Institute fellow. “Libraries have shaped every part of my life and career—they represent access, equity, and the power of information to transform communities,” Barnes said in ALA’s announcement. 

Calzada, a member of the Texas Library Association, is a past president of the American Association of School Librarians and a member of ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Round Table. She is featured in director Kim A. Snyder’s documentary The Librarians and was recognized in People magazine’s 2023 Women Changing the World issue. “Our association must be member-informed and continue to position libraries as critical democratic institutions,” Calzada said in ALA’s statement. “We have been navigating rigorous, unyielding times, yet through it all, librarians and library workers have answered the call to lead and serve.”

Barnes and Calzada will speak and take questions at a virtual candidates’ forum, to be scheduled for early 2026.

Additional candidates wishing to run must collect 200 signatures via e-petition and submit their request by December 12. Balloting for the election will take place March 9–April 1, 2026, and is open to all ALA members in good standing.