Nicole A. Cooke

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Nicole A. Cooke
Education Rutgers University, Pennsylvania State University
Occupation(s)Librarian and educator

Nicole Amy Cooke is an African-American librarian and the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair at the University of South Carolina. Her research focus on critical cultural information studies in libraries and her advocacy for social justice have earned recognition in the library profession.

Contents

Biography and education

Cooke attended Rutgers University for her bachelor's degree in communication in 1997. She continued at Rutgers for her Master of Library Science in 1999, and a Ph.D. from the School of Communication and Information in 2012. [1]

Cooke was a librarian for 13 years before pursuing her Ph.D. [1] She was part of the first cohort of the American Library Association Spectrum doctoral fellows during her program at Rutgers. [2] Cooke earned a M.Ed. from Pennsylvania State University. [1]

Research and career

Cooke's research interests include human information behavior, critical cultural information studies, and diversity and social justice in librarianship.

Her early service work focused on increasing the number of librarians of color in the profession in order to make libraries and librarians more reflective of the communities they serve. Cooke felt it would be "tantamount to malpractice" to send library students into the workforce without educating them about social justice issues. [3]

She has published about the struggles she and other librarians of color face in predominately white spaces like academia. [4]

In 2010, Cooke and Trevor Dawes founded the New Jersey chapter of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. [5]

Cooke began teaching at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2013. Her class, Information Services to Diverse Populations, addressed a gap in the curriculum to meet the needs of the student body. This inspired her book, Information Services to Diverse Populations: Developing Culturally Competent Library Professionals. [6] By 2018, Cooke was the program director for the Master's of Library and Information Science Program. [7]

In 2017, Cooke received a Diversity Research Grant from ALA's Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. Right wing outlet Campus Reform published a story about her project, called "Minority Student Experiences with Racial Microaggressions in the Academic Library," and Cooke received harassment as a result of their publication. Hate groups published her email address and phone number on their websites. Her workplace and campus safety did not remove her email address or phone number from the website, and investigated her instead. [8]

In 2019, Cooke was awarded the Augusta Baker Chair in Childhood Literacy in the School of Information Science at the University of South Carolina. As of 2022, she is an associate professor in the program. [3]

She was the Chair of Public and Cultural Programs Advisory Committee under ALA President Julius C. Jefferson Jr., and was a member of the Overall Advisory Committee for ALA President Patty Wong (librarian). [1]

In 2020, Cooke created the Anti-Racism Resources for All Ages project.

Selected publications

Recognition

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Alumna Nicole Cooke Named Recipient of 2021 Social Justice Award, Rutgers School of Communication and Information, retrieved 28 April 2022
  2. ↑ The Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship Program: Enhancing the LIS Professoriate https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/libsci_facpub/312/
  3. 1 2 3 Sexton, Megan (11 January 2021), UofSC's 2021 Social Justice Award winners chosen, University of South Carolina
  4. ↑ Cooke, Nicole A. (2019), "Impolite hostilities and vague sympathies: academia as a site of cyclical abuse" (PDF), Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 60 (3): 223–230, doi:10.3138/jelis.2019-0005, hdl:2142/104218, S2CID   199163662
  5. ↑ Nicole Cooke and Trevor Dawes | Movers & Shakers 2007 https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/nicole-cooke-and-trevor-dawes-movers-shakers-2007
  6. ↑ Cooke, Nicole. Information Services to Diverse Populations : Developing Culturally Competent Library Professionals. 2017. Santa Barbara California: Libraries Unlimited an imprint of ABC-CLIO LLC.
  7. ↑ Bhat, Nimisha (24 July 2018), Featured Researcher Spotlight On: Nicole A. Cooke, PH.D., M.ED., MLS, The Librarian Parlor
  8. ↑ Morehart, Phil (25 June 2018). "Bullying, Trolling, and Doxxing, Oh My!".
  9. ↑ ALISE / Norman Horrocks Leadership Award https://www.alise.org/alise-norman-horrocks-leadership-award
  10. ↑ Cooke receives Leadership Award in Education https://ischool.illinois.edu/news-events/news/2015/03/cooke-receives-leadership-award-education
  11. ↑ Cooke receives 2016 Cowan Award for Teaching and Mentoring in Diversity https://ischool.illinois.edu/news-events/news/2016/11/cooke-receives-2016-cowan-award-teaching-and-mentoring-diversity
  12. ↑ The American Library Association honors Nicole A. Cooke with Equality Award American Library Association, March 22, 2016.
  13. ↑ Cooke recipient of 2017 Achievement in Library Diversity Research Award https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2017/01/cooke-recipient-2017-achievement-library-diversity-research-award
  14. ↑ ALISE Excellence in Teaching Award https://ali.memberclicks.net/alise-excellence-in-teaching-award

Further reading

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