Wayne A Wiegand

Wayne August Wiegand (born April 15, 1946) 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. He received a BA in history at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh (1968), an MA in history at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (1970), and an MLS at Western Michigan University and a Ph.D. in history at Southern Illinois University (1974). Before moving to Tallahassee in 2003 he was Librarian at Urbana College in Ohio (1974-1976), and on the faculties of the College of Library Science at the University of Kentucky (1976-1986) and the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1987-2002). At the latter he also served as founder and Co-Director of the Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America (a joint program of the University and the Wisconsin Historical Society established in 1992).

In Spring, 1994, he was William Rand Kenan Jr. Visiting Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In Spring, 1998, he was Fellow in the UW–Madison’s Institute for Research in the Humanities. In 1999 he was elected to membership in the American Antiquarian Society, and in Fall, 2000, he was a Spencer Foundation Fellow. Between 2004 and 2007 he served as Executive Director of Beta Phi Mu (the International Library and Information Science Honor Society). As a member of the faculty of the FSU Program in American & Florida Studies, in 2006 he co-organized the Florida Book Awards (the most comprehensive state book awards program in the United States) and until July, 2012, served as its Director. 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. From 2010 to 2014 he served as President of the Florida State University Friends of Libraries.

For the academic year 2008-2009, he was on 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 (release expected in November, 2017) 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 the American public school library. In Spring, 2018, Louisiana State University Press will publish "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.

He currently resides in Walnut Creek, California.