American Library Association

The American Library Association (ALA ) is an organization that was founded in the United States and the libraries on an international level.

With approximately 64,600 members, it is the oldest and largest library association in the world. It was founded in Philadelphia in 1876, today the headquarters is located in Chicago. Since 2002, Keith Michael fiels is the managing director.

The organization awarded numerous awards including the Caldecott Medal, the Newbery Medal, the Stonewall Book Award, Michael L. Printz Award and the ALA Best Books for Young Adults Award.

The ALA is co-editor of the world's most widely used library rules Anglo - American Cataloguing Rules.

The organization is deeply committed against censorship of libraries. It publishes an annual list of successful and attempted distances of books from libraries and is the main sponsor of the annual Banned Books Week.