Wiegand, Wayne A. 1946–

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Wiegand, Wayne A. 1946–

PERSONAL:

Born April 15, 1946, in Manitowoc, WI; son of Edward (a truck driver) and Germaine (a homemaker) Wiegand; married Shirley Ann Abitz (a professor of law), June 19, 1965; children: Cori F. Wiegand Sheets, Scott, Andrew. Education: University of Wisconsin—Oshkosh, B.A., 1968; University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, M.A., 1970; Western Michigan University, M.S.L.S., 1974; Southern Illinois University, Ph.D., 1974. Politics: Independent. Hobbies and other interests: Swimming, carpentry.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Tallahassee, FL. Office—254 Louis Shares Bldg., Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2100; fax: 850-644-6253. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, Milwaukee, history teacher at university school, 1969; history teacher at a military academy in Lake Geneva, WI, 1969-70; John A. Logan College, Carterville, IL, instructor in history, 1973; Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI, rare books cataloger and evening supervisor at Upjohn Library, 1973-74; Urbana College, Urbana, IL, college librarian, 1974-76; University of Kentucky, Lexington, assistant professor, 1976-82, associate professor of library and information science, 1982-86; University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, associate professor, 1987-89, professor of library history and information studies, 1989-2002, cofounder and codirector of Center for Print Culture History in Modern America, 1992-2002, fellow of Teaching Academy, 1996-2002, fellow of Institute for Research in the Humanities, 1998; Florida State University, Tallahassee, F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies and professor of American studies, 2003—. University of Arizona, visiting distinguished professor, 1993, 1995, 1997; University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, William Rand Kenan, Jr., Visiting Professor, 1994. Director, Florida Best Books Awards, 2006—.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, American Library Association, American Antiquarian Society; Library Research Round Table (member of board of directors, 1979-1982; chair, 1992), Library History Round Table (chair, 1988), Social Responsibilities Round Table, Intellectual Freedom Round Table, American Studies Association, Association for Library and Information Science Education, Organization of American Historians, Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, Wisconsin Historical Society, Beta Phi Mu (executive director, 2004-07), Delta Tau Kappa, Phi Alpha Theta.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Library Association, Herbert Putnam Award, 1975; fellow at Newberry Library, 1976; Library Research Round Table of American Library Association, Library Research Round Table Award, 1978; grants from Council on Library Resources, 1979-81, and American Philosophical Society, 1981; Harold Lancour Scholar, Beta Phi Mu, 1981; grant from Kentucky Department of Library and Archives, 1982; shared Justin Winsor Award, 1982, for "British Propaganda in American Libraries, 1914-1917"; research paper award, Association of Library and Information Science Education, 1984, 1987, and 1993; G.K. Hall Award for Outstanding Contribution to Library Literature, 1988, for Politics of an Emerging Profession: The American Library Association, 1876-1917, 1991, for An Active Instrument for Propaganda: American Public Libraries during World War I, and 1997, for Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey; grants from American Council of Learned Societies, 1988, and National Endowment for the Humanities, 1990; William Best Hesseltine Award, Wisconsin Magazine of History, 1990, for "In Service to the State: Wisconsin Public Libraries during World War I"; grants from Center for the Book, Library of Congress, 1992, 1995; Delta Award, Friends of Morris Library, Southern Illinois University—Carbondale, 1995; Justin Winsor Award, 1996, for "The ‘Amherst Method:’ The Origins of the Dewey Decimal Classification Scheme"; elected fellow, University of Wisconsin-Madison's Academy for Teaching Excellence, 1996; Carey McWilliams Award for Contribution to Multicultural Literature, 1999, for Print Culture in a Diverse America; Spencer Foundation Fellow, 2000.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

The History of a Hoax: Edmund Lester Pearson, John Cotton Dana, and the Old Librarian's Almanack, Beta Phi Mu (Pittsburgh, PA), 1979.

(Editor) Leaders in American Academic Librarianship, 1925-1975, Beta Phi Mu (Pittsburgh, PA), 1983.

Politics of an Emerging Profession: The American Library Association, 1876-1917, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1986.

Patrician in the Progressive Era: A Biography of George von Lengerke Meyer, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Dorothy Steffens) Members of the Club: A Look at One Hundred ALA Presidents, University of Illinois (Champaign, IL), 1988.

An Active Instrument for Propaganda: American Public Libraries during World War I, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1989.

(Editor) Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography, Libraries Unlimited (Englewood, CO), 1990.

(Editor, with Donald G. Davis, Jr.) Encyclopedia of Library History, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1994.

Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey, American Library Association (Chicago, IL), 1996.

(Editor, with James P. Danky) Print Culture in a Diverse America, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1998.

(Editor, with Thomas Augst) Libraries as Agencies of Culture, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 2002.

(Editor, with Anne Lundin) Defending Print Culture for Youth: The Cultural Work of Children's Literatures, Libraries Unlimited (Westport, CT), 2003.

(Editor) Diana Tixier Herald, Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests, Libraries Unlimited (Westport, CT), 6th edition, 2006.

(Editor, with James P. Danky) Women in Print: Essays on the Print Culture of American Women from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 2006.

(With wife, Shirley A. Wiegand) Books on Trial: Red Scare in the Heartland, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, OK), 2007.

Contributor to books, including State Library Services and Issues: Facing Future Challenges, edited by Charles McClure, Ablex Publishing (Norwood, NJ), 1986; For the Good of the Order: Essays in Honor of Edward G. Holley, edited by Williams, Delmas, and others, JAI Press (Greenwich, CT), 1994; The Versatile Text: Studies in the History of the Book, edited by Bill Bell, David Finkelstein, and Simon Eliot, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1998. Editor of "Beta Phi Mu Monograph Series," 1978-93, "Leaders in American Academic Librarianship, 1925-1975," 1983, and Supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography, 1991. Contributor of more than 200 articles and reviews to library and history journals, including Bookmark, Libraries and Culture, Journal of Library History, and Oregon Historical Quarterly. Member of editorial advisory board, The ALA World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services, 1983-86. Library Quarterly, member of board of editors, 1990-2000, coeditor, 2003—; Library History, member of editorial board, 1996—; editor, Drexel Library Quarterly, 1980; guest editor, Library Trends, 1996. Author of column, "This Month in History," for American Libraries, 1998-2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Wayne A. Wiegand is a professor of library science and American studies, as well as the author and editor of numerous works on books and libraries. Wiegand and Donald G. Davis, Jr., collaborated in editing the Encyclopedia of Library History, published in 1994. This book, which is "international in scope," according to Sandy Whiteley in Booklist, consists of articles that range from two hundred to six thousand words, "covering library history from Babylonian clay tablets to MEDLINE." Although history is the main focus, there is plentiful information on contemporary library topics, such as racial and gender issues in the library world.

Wiegand acted as editor with James P. Danky for the book Print Culture in a Diverse America, published in 1998. Danky and Wiegand were, at that time, codirectors of the Center for the Study of Print Culture in Modern America, and this book is a collection of eleven papers that were presented at a conference held at the center in 1995. There are many perspectives from which to consider the study of print culture, so much so that the "variety can be perplexing for the uninitiated reader," commented Jeanel Walker in a review for Libraries & Culture. She felt that Print Culture in a Diverse America "provides a good overview of current areas of study, and the essays themselves serve as examples of the broad spectrum on print cultures research." Weigand worked with Danky again in editing Women in Print: Essays on the Print Culture of American Women from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. It is a collection of eleven papers that focus on contributions made by women editors.

Wiegand again acted as coeditor for the book Libraries as Agencies of Culture, this time working with Thomas Augst. The book was strongly recommended by Daniel F. Ring in Libraries & Culture, where he wrote: "This book is the best collection of essays that I have reviewed. Each essay was carefully crafted and superbly researched. The contributors come from a wide spectrum of cultural studies, library history, and other aspects of librarianship. They were obviously chosen with great care." The essayists discuss many aspects of public access to information. Their writings touch on subjects including the Library of Congress and its music archives; the private libraries in New England during the Antebellum period; and the notion that libraries help to stabilize society. "This is a most important book," concluded Ring.

Wiegand teamed with his wife, Shirley A. Wiegand, to write Books on Trial: Red Scare in the Heartland. In this book, the authors shed light on a "fascinating chapter in the grassroots history of American communism," according to Duncan Stewart in the Library Journal. The events took place in 1940, when police in Oklahoma City staged an illegal raid on a Communist Party bookstore. The store's contents were seized and everyone in it was arrested and held without bail or access to lawyers or other outside help. In time, they were brought to trial, and four were convicted and sentenced. The injustice of the trial inspired protest from many quarters, including churches, publishers, librarians, the American Civil Liberties Union, and even the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt; the verdicts were ultimately overturned. Reviewing Books on Trial, Stewart found it somewhat simplistic in its depiction of the Communist Party, but concluded that it is "a fine book."

Wiegand once told CA: "In large part, I decided to work in the academy because it would encourage me to write about history, and then reward me for that task. For me, writing offers an opportunity to work out and refine my thoughts, then subject those thoughts to the critical scrutiny of others. I find the process exciting and energizing.

"I stumbled onto the field of American library history in the early 1970s as a doctoral student at Southern Illinois University, where I fit a minor in library and information studies into my history major. Although the ubiquitous American library has been an important cultural institution for centuries, its role and influence in American history has largely been ignored by historians, and was largely being celebrated (rather than analyzed) by librarians. Once I received my doctorate and after I spent two years in library practice, in 1976 I decided to enter the field of library and information science education and use it as a foundation to research and write American library history with a thirty-year ‘grand plan’ divided into decades.

"During the first decade I planned to establish myself as a library history scholar, and during the second I would do what I could to improve the quality and quantity of library history scholarship by working with establishment institutions (like the American Library Association's Library History Round Table). Now in the third decade, however, I am committed to advertising the library as a cultural institution worthy of scrutiny to a variety of research communities, including scholars in traditional academic departments like English and history, and in newer area studies units like print culture and cultural studies.

"I continue to find the field of American library history so rich in possibilities that I will never lack for subjects on which to research and write, and I welcome opportunities to sell this relatively untapped field to scholars working in and outside the library profession. Generally, I look to print culture studies (David Hall, Janice Radway), social history (Larry Levine, Gerda Lerner), and the new scholarship on the culture and history of reading (Carl Kaestle, Roger Chartier) for inspiration.

"Generally I draft all my work in longhand. I find this process forces me to work more slowly, and by thinking more carefully about the words I write (rather than type) onto a page, I am convinced I go through fewer drafts. I do most of my writing in my study. After completing a handwritten first draft, I quickly transcribe it to a word-processed document."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 1994, Sandy Whiteley, review of Encyclopedia of Library History, p. 1618.

Libraries & Culture, March 22, 2000, Jeanel Walker, review of Print Culture in a Diverse America, p. 377; March 22, 2004, Daniel F. Ring, review of Libraries as Agencies of Culture, p. 219.

Library Journal, February 15, 2003, Brian Kenney, review of Libraries as Agencies of Culture, p. 175; September 15, 2007, Duncan Stewart, review of Books on Trial: Red Scare in the Heartland, p. 72.

Publishers Weekly, June 18, 2007, review of Books on Trial, p. 43.

Reference & Research Book News, May 1, 2006, review of Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests,; August 1, 2006, review of Women in Print: Essays on the Print Culture of American Women from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries; February 1, 2008, review of Books on Trial.

Reference & User Services Quarterly, December 22, 2006, James McShane, review of Genreflecting, p. 99.