Alma Dawson

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Alma Dawson (February 4, 1943 – September 11, 2025) was an American librarian and scholar who helped shape library science education. She spent her career at Louisiana State University (LSU), retiring in 2014 as the Russell B. Long Professor of the School of Library and Information Science and becoming emeritus in 2015. In 2019 she received the Essae Martha Culver Distinguished Service Award from the Louisiana Library Association for her long service and leadership.

Dawson earned a B.S. in secondary education from Grambling State University and taught in the Natchitoches Parish School System. She then earned an M.S. in library and information science from the University of Michigan. She worked as head Serials Librarian at Prairie View A&M University’s W. R. Banks Library and participated in the Mellon-ACRL Internship Project in 1978 at the University of Wisconsin Library.

She joined LSU Libraries in 1982 as a library and information science librarian, edited the "Professional Sources" column for the Reference and User Services Association journal (RQ), and served as a reviewer in the 1980s. Dawson earned a Ph.D. in Library Science and Higher Education from Texas Woman’s University in 1996 and joined the LSU School of Library and Information Science, where she rose to the rank of Russell B. Long Professor.

Dawson studied and wrote about the history of African Americans in the Louisiana Library Association and was recognized as a pioneering African American scholar in American Libraries in 2018. She helped establish a mentorship program for minority and international LSU students in 1995 with the Louisiana Library Association. In 1997 she secured funds for an Institute to train public and school librarians in selecting and evaluating multicultural literature, a work she documented in Louisiana Libraries. In 2009 she received an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for “Project Recovery,” which funded scholarships for master’s degrees in librarianship and supported library projects affected by Hurricane Katrina and Rita, with Suzanne M. Stauffer assisting in public library recruitment.

Alma Dawson died on September 11, 2025, at age 82.