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.

中文翻译：

---

民主与图书馆

韦恩·韦根（Wayne Wiegand）的最新著作《我们的生活：美国公共图书馆的人民历史》，以及使用该书作为测试案例的文章，是通过历史考察得出的结论，即图书馆与民主和民主公民的关系是微弱的。本文根据当代民主理论，利用韦根的学术研究作为选择机制来关注政治理论，研究了这一主张。韦根已经实质性地处理了一些对民主理论非常重要的主题，但未必涉及其政治意义，因为它们有助于阐明图书馆与民主的关系。