Christine Pawley Receives 2013 Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award
Chicago - The Gleason Book Award Committee of the American Library
Association Library History Roundtable is pleased to announce that the
winner of the 2013 Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award is Christine Pawley
for Reading Places: Literacy, Democracy, and the Public Library in Cold
War America (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010).
Presented every third year, the Gleason Award recognizes the best book
written in English in the field of library history. First given in
2004, this award honors the professional contributions of Dr. Eliza
Atkins Gleason, the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in Library
Science (University of Chicago, 1940).
Christine Pawley retired in 2012 as Professor and Director of the School
of Library and Information Studies and Director of the Center for the
History of Print and Digital Culture at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
A thoroughly researched investigation and analysis, Reading Places
masterfully uses oral history to tell the story of a contested
experimental regional library service in rural Wisconsin in the early
1950s. Dr. Pawley combines research in primary documents and library
records, and use of contemporary periodicals and publications, with
interviews that bring the topic to life in a most engaging way. The
argument is conducted with awareness of a wide range of secondary
literature as well. The book is written in a clear style that maintains
high interest for the reader yet the analysis is scholarly in tone and
intelligent in development.
A particular strength of Reading Places was the relationship of the
events to wider historical, social, political and cultural trends. The
light shed on American thinking during the Cold War, and on attitudes
that later played into the “culture wars”, makes this a work that has
something important to say to a much wider audience than one would
expect, and in reference to far more issues in American history.
Reading Places exemplifies the potential value of library history as a
means of investigating significant broader themes and trends. We
congratulate Dr. Pawley for her important contribution to the
professional scholarship.
The Gleason Award Committee was impressed by the high quality of the
eligible nominees and the wide range of topics. Submissions included
histories of a variety of periods and places from the ancient world to
the twentieth century, histories of urban and rural library development,
and institutional histories, as well as historical accounts of libraries
and reading practices. The Committee would like to congratulate all the
scholars who are contributing such important works to the field, and we
would also like to thank the individuals and publishers who brought many
of these works to our attention.
2013 Gleason Book Award Committee:
Dr. Patti Clayton Becker, Professor and Coordinator of Reference,
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Library (Committee Chair)
Dr. Renate Chancellor, Assistant Professor, Catholic University of
America, School of Library and Information Science, Washington, DC
Dr. Steven Sowards, Associate Director for Collections, Michigan State
University Libraries, East Lansing, MI
