The first free modern public library in the United States was opened in 1833 in New Hampshire. Public libraries are among the most favorably viewed institutions in the country. They are however chronically under-funded institutions and constantly under political assault.
This event will offer a space for participants to discuss a people's history of the American public library. It will also offer an opportunity to learn about a new project that will invite those on the political Left(s) to take a more active role in their local libraries.
We are happy to welcome Dr. Wayne Wiegand as our featured guest for this discussion. Often referred to as the “Dean of American Library Historians,” he is the F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus at Florida State University. Now retired from teaching, Dr. Wiegand is a prolific author. In 2007 he co-authored Books on Trial: Red Scare in the Heartland with Shirley A. Wiegand. In 2012 he published with Sarah Wadsworth “Right Here I See My Own Books:” The Women’s Library at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. With Shirley A. Wiegand, in 2018 he published The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South, which won the American Library Association’s 2019 Eliza Atkins Gleason Award for best book in library history published in the previous two years. It also prompted ALA in June, 2018, to formally apologize for inaction during the Civil Rights Era.
For the academic year 2008-09 he held a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to write a book entitled “Part of Our Lives:” A People’s History of the American Public Library, published in 2015. He has also served as historical consultant for Free for All, a documentary on the American public library to be released in 2022.
His next book, tentatively entitled In Silence or Indifference: Librarianship’s Willful Blindness Toward Segregated Public School Libraries in the Jim Crow South, 1954-1974, is currently being considered for publication by a university press. He now lives in Walnut Creek, California.
Access info: ASL interpretation and live captioning will be provided.
CO-FACILITATORS
Mariame Kaba (she/her) is a recent MSLIS graduate. She is the founder & director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization focused on ending youth incarceration, and co-leads Interrupting Criminalization with fellow researcher Andrea J. Ritchie. Kaba is the author of the New York Times Bestseller We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (Haymarket Books, 2021), among several other titles that offer support and tools for repair, transformation, and moving toward a future without incarceration and policing.
Megan Riley (she/they) is a doctoral student in UCLA’s Department of Information Studies focusing on the political economy and history of US public libraries. She graduated UCLA’s MLIS program in 2020, focusing on labor issues in Library & Information Science (LIS), special collections, and community archives. Megan is committed to information access for incarcerated people and police- and policing-free libraries, and is organizing around these issues with the Abolitionist Library Association.