Wayne A. Wiegand


Wayne August Wiegand is an American library historian, author, and academic. Wiegand retired as F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies and Professor of American Studies at Florida State University in 2010.

Early life and education

Wiegand received a BA in history at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, an MA in history at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, an MLS at Western Michigan University and a Ph.D. in history at Southern Illinois University.

Career

Wiegand was Librarian at Urbana College in Ohio.
He taught at the College of Library Science at the University of Kentucky from 1976 through 1986.
From 1987-2002 he was a professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison he served as cofounder and Co-Director of the Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America.
He served as William Rand Kenan Jr. Visiting Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and as Fellow in the UW–Madison's Institute for Research in the Humanities. He was an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and a Spencer Foundation Fellow.
At Florida State University, Tallahassee he was F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies and professor of American studies, 2003—2010.
Between 2004 and 2007, he served as Executive Director of Beta Phi Mu. Wiegand co-organized the Florida Book Awards as a member of the faculty of the FSU Program in American & Florida Studies.
For the academic year 2009-2010, he shared time between Florida State University in Tallahassee and the Winter Park Institute of Rollins College, where he was "Scholar in Residence." In 2011, he received a Short-Term Fellowship from the New York Public Library.
In 2024 the Library History Round Table awarded Wiegand the Distinguished Service in Library History Award which honors the career of a person who has a lifetime of scholarship and service in the field of library history.

Writing

From 2008-2009, he had a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to write a book entitled Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2015. Notable among library histories for its emphasis on user experience and the role of libraries as community institutions, the book has been described as a "landmark" in library history marked by "impassioned advocacy" and "solid scholarship". The book precedes a documentary on the American public library "Free for All: The American Public Library" by independent film makers.
From January to May 2017, he was Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress's John W. Kluge Center, researching a book on the history of American public school librarianship. It later appeared as American Public School Librarianship: A History.
In spring 2018, Louisiana State University Press published The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism, a book he coauthored with his wife, Shirley A. Wiegand. It was awarded the 2019 Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award by the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association.
In September, 2024, the University Press of Mississippi published In Silence or Indifference: Racism and Jim Crow Segregated Public School Libraries. Wiegand has been a forceful voice demanding that "librarianship engage with and reflect on its own historical amnesia, and process the missing information into its collective memory so the profession no longer perpetuates self-serving historical myths."
His next book-length project is tentatively entitled Soul of the City: A People's History of the San Francisco Public Library.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • 2024. Distinguished Service in Library History Award
  • 2019. Winner, Eliza Atkins Gleason Award for The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism, coauthored with Shirley A. Wiegand and awarded by American Library Association Library History Round Table for Best Book Published Between 2016 and 2018.
  • 2008. Winner, Muriel H. Wright Award for “Sooner State Civil Liberties in Perilous Times, 1940-1941: Part 2; Oklahoma’s little Dies Committee,” as best article to appear in The Chronicles of Oklahoma, 2008 volume year.
  • 2007. Selected, Book-of-the-Month, American Booksellers Committee on Free Expression, November.
  • 1999. Elected Member, American Antiquarian Society.
  • 1999. Winner, Carey McWilliams Award for Contribution to Multicultural Literature, for Print Culture in a Diverse America, co-edited with James P. Danky.
  • 1997. Winner, G.K. Hall Award for Outstanding Contribution to Library Literature, American Library Association, for book, Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey.
  • 1996. Winner, Justin Winsor Award, Library History Round Table, “The `Amherst Method:’ The Origins of the Dewey Decimal Classification Scheme.”
  • 1993. Winner, Research Paper Award, Association for Library and Information Science Education, “Catalog of “A.L.A.” Library: Origins of a Genre.”
  • 1991. Winner, G.K. Hall Award for Outstanding Contribution to Library Literature, American Library Associaiton, for book, An Active Instrument for Propaganda:’ American Public Libraries During World War I.
  • 1990. William Best Hesseltine Award for “In Service to the State: Wisconsin Public Libraries During World War I,” as best article to appear in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, 1989 volume year.
  • 1988. Winner, G.K. Hall Award for Outstanding Contribution to Library Literature, American Library Association, for book, Politics of An Emerging Profession: The American Library Association, 1896-1917.
  • 1987. Winner, Research Paper Award, Association for Library and Information Science Education, “Censorship in Public Libraries: World War I as a Test Case.”
  • 1984. Winner, Research Paper Award, Association for Library and Information Science Education, “Establishing ALA Headquarters in Chicago: An Analysis of the Forces Which Brought the American Library Association to Chicago in 1909.”
  • 1982. Co-Winner, Justin Winsor Award, Library History Round Table*, for best research paper submitted in library history, “British Propaganda in American Libraries, 1914-1917.”
  • 1979-80. Selected to “Wall of Distinction,” Western Michigan University Alumni Center.

    Personal life

Wiegand is married to Shirley A. Wiegand and both currently reside in Walnut Creek, California.