School of Information Professor Emeritus Wayne Wiegand received a Research Travel Award from the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Atlanta University Center. The award allowed him to conduct research within the Archives Research Center from July 17-20 for his upcoming book, In Silence or Indifference: Librarianship’s Willful Blindness Toward Jim Crow Segregated Public School Libraries, 1954-1974.

This new book was inspired by research Wiegand had done on his previous two books, “The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism” (co-authored with his wife, Shirl, 2018) and “American Public School Librarianship: A History” (2021).

Wiegand’s primary goal at the Archives Research Center was to explore the Virginia Lacy Jones Papers.

“Virginia Lacy Jones was one of several Black library leaders who protested the situations in Jim Crow public school libraries,” Wiegand said. “Many of her students at Atlanta had taken positions in Black school libraries.”

As part of the travel award, Wiegand presented to an audience of primarily archivists and librarians at Clark Atlanta University. “They heard a tale never before told, but one that reinforced concepts about racism in librarianship they had already suspected,” Wiegand said.

Wiegand plans to publish his upcoming book with the University Press of Mississippi in September 2024.