On Democracy and Libraries

Wayne Wiegand’s recent book, Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library, and article using the book as a test case concluded from historical examination that the relationship of libraries to democracy and democratic citizenship is tenuous. This article examines that claim in light of contemporary democratic theory, using Wiegand’s scholarship as a selection mechanism to focus within political theory. Wiegand has dealt substantively with a number of themes quite important to democratic theory but has not necessarily dealt with their political import as they help to clarify the relationship of libraries to democracy.