Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award

91´«Ã½

The Eliza Atkins Gleason Book Award is presented by the Library History Round Table of the 91´«Ã½ every third year to recognize the best book written in English in the field of library history. The award bears the name of Eliza Atkins Gleason, the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in Library Science, from University of Chicago in 1940. Her book, The Southern Negro and the Public Library (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1941), traced the history of library service to African Americans up to that time and laid the foundation for all subsequent scholarship on that aspect of library history.

Eligibility and Criteria

Books published in the three preceding calendar years are eligible; e.g. books that appeared in 2022, 2023, and 2024 are eligible for the award in 2025. Bibliographies and edited collections will not be considered. Entries are judged on quality of scholarship, clarity of style, and depth of research. The round table is particularly interested in works that place the subject within its broader historical, social, cultural, and political context and make interdisciplinary connections with print culture and information studies.

Nominations and Selection

The Gleason Book Award Committee, a subcommittee of the Research Committee of the Library History Round Table, serves as jury for the award. Nominations are welcome from all interested parties and should include a brief statement explaining why the book is worthy of consideration for the Gleason Book Award and, preferably, three copies of the nominated book. Before submitting a nomination, please contact the chair to see if the book has already been nominated.

Nominations are welcome from all interested parties and should include a brief statement explaining why the book is worthy of consideration for the Gleason Book Award. Before submitting a nomination, please contact the committee chair, Catherine J. Minter, at cjminter@iu.edu, to see if the book you would like to nominate is already under consideration for the award in 2025.

Nominations are due on December 15, 2024. Selection of an award winner will be made no later than April 1, 2025.

Please direct any questions to Catherine J. Minter, at cjminter@iu.edu.

Presentation of the Award

The winner will be announced in a press release on or about June 1, 2025. Certificates honoring the author and publisher of the Gleason Book Award winner will be presented at a Library History Round Table awards ceremony during the 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference in 2025.

Previous Winners

2022 Rebecka Taves Sheffield
Documenting Rebellions: A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times
Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 2020

Wayne Wiegand and Shirley Wiegand
The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism
Louisiana State University Press, 2018

Dr. Cheryl Knott
Not Free, Not for All: Public Libraries in the Age of Jim Crow
University of Massachusetts Press, 2015

Christine Pawley
Reading Places: Literacy, Democracy, and the Public Library in Cold War America
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010

David Allan, University of St. Andrews
A Nation of Readers: The Lending Library in Georgian England
London: British Library, 2008

Carl Ostrowski
Books, Maps, and Politics: a Cultural History of the Library of Congress, 1783-1861
Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004

Louise Robbins
The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press