Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty
2026 Honorary Chair
Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty is an American librarian, curator, educator and cultural heritage administrator. She most recently was appointed as Deputy Commissioner of Visual Arts for the City of Chicago in 2024 and is the former director of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives in Washington, DC. With extensive experience across academic, public and museum library sectors Evangelestia-Dougherty previously served as Associate University Librarian for Rare and Distinctive Collections at Cornell University, Director of Collections and Services at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at New York Public Library, and Executive Director of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium at the University of Chicago. A respected leader in the library and museum community, Evangelestia-Dougherty concurrently teaches cultural heritage administration at California Rare Book School at the University of California Los Angeles and serves as a member of the American Antiquarian Society and the Caxton Club.
Evanglestia-Dougherty holds an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons University, where she studied archives, collective memory and historic and cultural documentation and preservation. For Evangelestia-Dougherty’s distinguished service and contributions to the profession, she received an honorary doctorate of library and information science from Simmons University in 2023.
In addition to cultural heritage work, writing and teaching, Evanglestia-Dougherty has served as a consultant to libraries, museums, and educational centers. She has presented and consulted on collaborative cultural heritage projects including the IMLS funded Diversifying the Digital Historical Record (2017), keynote speaker for Digital Preservation Coalition (2024), serving on the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) board of directors (2022-2024) and most recently contributed to the Morgan Library and Museum publication: Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy (2024) and the Andrew W. Mellon funded Chicago Monuments Project for the City of Chicago.
Evangelestia-Dougherty’s professional ethos aims to embed holistic advocacy for libraries and museums into civic culture through preserving, interpreting, and making natural and cultural heritage accessible thus activating common narratives of purpose for research in a global context.
Statement
Preservation is the crucial driving force of libraries and archives. It is also a building block in advancing human understanding and the stories that make us who we are. The year 2026 celebrates our country’s Semisesquicentennial aka the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. 2026 also heralds the 150th anniversary of the American Library Association. In 1876, 103 librarians gathered in Philadelphia at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in response to a call- a call for librarians to come together. In 1976 ALA President Edward G. Holley penned an essay on the occasion of the association’s 100th Birthday, titled “ALA at 100,” in which he referenced a “register” that was “passed around for all to sign who wished to become charter members” of ALA. Similarly, the gathering of politicians in Philadelphia in 1776 that ensued the signing of one of the most important and “circulated, reprinted, and influential documents in history” was also a call.
Reflecting on these celebrations reminds us of the documents that librarians and archivists preserve, which serve as evidence and an eternal atlas to stamps in time. Evidence that we were alive. Evidence that these events and accounts are authentic, that they did indeed occur and their preservation will never allow our voices to die or allow us to forget. Preservation is documents and artifacts, recordings, digital media and all the tangible information that requires our professional advocacy and stewardship–the love and sweat of our labor. However, beyond all of that, most importantly preservation is MEMORY and memory is the people and the communities who make them.
There is no Declaration of Independence without the stories of people to preserve.
There is no gathering of librarians without the stories of what challenges and opportunities catalyzed and compelled them to come together and join to form an organization—ALA—that remains so relevant and present in our professional lives today.
The theme for ALA CORE Preservation Week 2026 is “Is This Thing On?: Preserving Memory and Building Archives.” The recent period for librarians and archivists leading up to this moment has been one of uncertainty and discomfort. Federal funding cuts to resources for GLAM institutions means fewer resources for preservation. Precarious work environments for library and archives staff means vacancy at the tables where our advocacy matters. But in instances where we feel uncertain and uncomfortable we can take comfort in knowing that this is exactly the time to get back out on stage, expand our agency, and extend ourselves to our communities. Leaning into what we know, leaning into the rationality of what we can control, OUR TRUTH as a profession, which is that preservation is our crucial driving force.
When librarians and archivists must be front and center in response to a call, sometimes we step up to the mic and ask, “Is this thing on?”
Which begs the question, what are we willing to do for the sake of preservation if we step to the mic, we get out on stage and no one claps?
This year’s preservation week centers on the resilience that lies within our connections as librarians and archivists with the communities we engage and empower outside of our reading room walls. The unsung heroes and heroines of preservation. The stories that are silenced in the archives. The documents that are not always propped up on display in glass vitrines. The declarations of struggles, triumphs, and independence that were never celebrated but textured our work because we cared enough to collect and build these archives. We cared enough to amplify awareness. We cared enough to fight for preservation even when the mic was not on. The importance of 2026 in the history of our nation and our organization should serve as a point of reflection and a reminder to incentivize. It should be heralded as a call to never forget. To not ignore systemic divisions and imbalances or perpetuate the missed opportunities that erode memory and run counter to preservation.
The programming offered by ALA Core in honor of Preservation Week 2026 will amplify ways to build archives and expand our awareness beyond independence of libraries and archives in preservation work to interdependence with our communities to dissolve barriers.
Anniversaries, commemorations, and milestones come and go but our dedication to the culture of preservation within our profession never dies.
Scheduled Events
Webinar: Seen, Not Saved: Preservation as an Act of Resilience, Resistance and Visibility
Wednesday, April 29th 2026
2:00 p.m. EDT / 1:00 p.m. CDT / 12:00 p.m. MDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT
Tamar Evangelestia-Dougherty and Sherry Williams will discuss their work in community activism, archiving, and memory work.
Preservation Week is supported by Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures, a division of the American Library Association.
#PreservationWeek