Shannon Crooks is a Ph.D. student at the iSchool. Shannon has a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Social Work from Winthrop and Howard University. She received her Master’s in Library and Information Science from Syracuse University in 2018.
Before enrolling in the Ph.D. program, she worked as a librarian supervisor at an urban library in Prince George’s County, Maryland. While working in the library, she strategized how to engage and support the library community.
Shannon spent several years working as a social worker in various roles such as foster parent trainer/recruiter/licensing specialist, foster care social worker, teen mom social worker, treatment plan writer, and teen mom life skills group facilitator. Working in social work has enriched her librarianship skill set and guides her practice when working with people in library communities. Her primary research focus is social work librarianship and community engagement.
Shannon is an American Library Association Spectrum Doctoral Fellow. She is also a co-researcher with her advisor Dr. Renate Chancellor on a $5,000 grant to study public librarianship social work in three major public libraries across the United States. This funding was made possible by the Reference and User Services Association Gail Schlachter Memorial Research Grant to conduct research into reference or user services to understand and answer key questions related to connecting people to resources, information services, and collections.