Wayne A. Wiegand, F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus, has received one of three 2012 Diversity Research Grants from the American Library Association (ALA).

His research project, “This Hallowed Place: The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the American South, 1954-1968,” will analyze primary source materials like African American newspapers; local, state and federal court records; and interviews with living participants to create a general interest book about this historic period.

“The applications this year were of the highest quality,” Gwendolyn Prellwitz, assistant director of the ALA Office of Diversity, said to Wiegand in his award letter, “and the selection of your proposal speaks to our belief in the impact your successfully completed research will have on the profession.”

The ALA Office for Diversity began sponsorship of its Diversity Research Grant program in 2002 to address critical gaps in the knowledge of diversity issues within library and information science. The grant award consists of $2,000 for the research project and $500 for travel expenses when Wiegand formally presents the findings of his year-long project at the 2013 ALA Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Wiegand also received a short-term fellowship from the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Library at Emory University in Atlanta to do research on the same project.