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, and 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, and on the faculties of the College of Library Science at the University of Kentucky from 1976 through 1986, and the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from1987 through 2002. He moved to Florida State University in 2003. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison he served as founder 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. 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.

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. The book 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 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.
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.

Personal life

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