Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library

ISBN-13: 9780190660291 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 344 str.

Wayne A. Wiegand

Opis

Part of Our Lives challenges the conventional idea that public libraries are valuable mostly because they are essential to democracy. Instead, this book uses the voices of generations of public library users to argue that Americans have loved their libraries for the useful information they make accessible; the public spaces they provide; and the commonplace reading materials they supply that help users make sense of the world around them.

Recenzje

With most histories over the decades emanating largely from practitioners and educators in the library field, a persistent criticism has been researchers' reluctance to engage more fully with the literature and methodologies of wider history and other disciplines. There are exceptions to this pattern, however; and Wayne Wiegand is categorically one of them. His work has embraced the 'new history' of recent decades, including the use of critical cultural theory, especially that relating to place and community. For good reason, Wiegand is regarded as the 'Dean of American library history studies'.

O autorze

Wayne A. Wiegand is F. William Summers Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Studies at Florida State University and former director of the Florida Book Awards. Often referred to as the "Dean of American library historians," he is the author of more than one hundred articles and numerous award-winning books, including An Active Instrument for Propaganda: American Public Libraries During World War I and Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey. In 2008-9, he was a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow to support his research on the American Public Library. He now lives in the California Bay area.