I sent an "open letter" to ALA Connect/LHRT in hopes the subject would spark conversation about the "priority" LCHS gives "to community members as first authors, co-authors, and significant contributors to research and the writing process." I chose not to communicate my concerns privately because-in my experience--all too often disagreements like this remain in private communications, and do not get debated in public forums. I'll certainly take my lumps for crafting any "false dichotomies."
As I see it, from its origins professional American librarianship has lived in a "bubble," one in which its members have been reluctant and often unwilling to discuss unpleasant subjects at the time they are happening. (Some might say librarians don't like to "wash their dirty linen in public.") Because of that unwillingness to profile unpleasant situations in either the library press or at professional conferences at the time they are happening they deprive subsequent generations of documentation dealing with these unpleasant situations, and as a result, subsequent generations are often not even aware the unpleasant situations existed in the first place. To look at it differently, by not commenting on unpleasant situations the profession in effect crafts a "bubble" that subsequently nurtures a particularly positive historical picture of itself. How else to explain the standard line that until recently ALA issued with its press releases: "For more than 140 years, the ALA has been the trusted voice for academic, public, school, government, and special libraries, advocating for the profession and the library's role in enhancing learning and ensuring access to information for all." How else to explain the official 150th ALA Anniversary statement for 2026: "Since 1876 the American Library Association has championed access to information, defended free speech, & upheld the power of libraries to transform lives & strengthen democracy." Existing research demonstrates that neither of these statements is historically true, yet because of the "bubble," most library professionals appear to believe these kinds of statements. Within that "bubble" members of the library community have also tended to celebrate the accomplishments of particular professionals, but all too often they spend little to no time discussing the sources of the significant obstacles they had to overcome-a discussion that may be more instructive for the library profession than a listing of accomplishments.
Again, as I see it, since 1876 the vast majority of our professional literature and conference programming has lived within this "bubble." The only check I see on challenging the "bubble" is serious and deep historical research, some of which has to go beyond traditional sources one finds cited in most American library history literature--like ALA conference Proceedings, past issues of Library Journal, and the annual reports of libraries.
Case in point. Because the entire library profession did not want to confront the issue of segregated Jim Crow public school libraries between 1954 and 1974, it took no note of the issue in its public discourse and said nothing about it in its literature or its conference programming. As a result, it left almost no record of the horribly racist things that were happening "on the ground." The vast majority (I'd say 95%) of the evidence I found to support my narrative in In Silence or Indifference came from literature and sources outside the library profession.
So here's my major worry. I expect the authors of stories to which LCHS gives "priority" will justifiably detail accomplishments of their subjects, but will their treatment live in that professional "bubble" that tends to celebrate accomplishments but overlook and undervalue the obstacles? And will there be generous discussion of the obstacles they had to overcome that is grounded in research into all relevant primary source material, whether digitized in an LIS database or buried in a small archive in a remote part of the country? That was the basis of my challenge to LCHS to "improve." Over the years I have said the same thing to editors of the American Historical Review when it occasionally published under-researched articles on library history. The inference that I "think so little of LCHS" is wrong.
Final word. Please do review In Silence or Indifference in your pages. If LCHS does, it will then become one of the few venues in the library press that openly manifests the courage to even address the issues I raise in the book.
Wayne A. Wiegand
F. Williams Summers Emeritus Professor of Library & Information Studies
Florida State University
wwiegandfsu@gmail.com
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Wayne Wiegand
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