Jessie Carney Smith

Jessie Carney Smith (born September 24, 1930) is an American librarian and educator, formerly Dean of the Fisk University Library and Camille Cosby Distinguished Chair in the Humanities. She was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. degree in library science from the University of Illinois. She attended James B. Dudley High School in Greensboro.

She graduated from North Carolina A&T State University with her B.S. degree in home economics in 1950. Smith received her M.A. degree in child development from Michigan State University in 1956, and her M.A.L.S. degree from the George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in 1957.

Career Smith began working as a clerk typist for Fisk University's religion and English departments in 1956, then transferring to the library. She worked up to being assistant to the head librarian, Arna Bontemps, who was the first Black person to hold that position, and he encouraged her to become his replacement. She held workshops on topics such as black studies, civil rights, and geneaology, and taught library science at the University of Tennessee, Alabama A&M University, and Vanderbilt University.

Smith was awarded Fisk University's Camille Cosby Distinguished Chair in the Humanities in 1992.

Smith has served as consultant to the U.S. Office for Civil Rights, the U.S. Office of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. She was awarded the Martin Luther King Black Authors Award in 1982 and the National Women's Book Association Award in 1992. and distinguished alumni awards from both the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and the University of Illinois. Smith was named the Academic/Research Librarian of the Year from the Association of College and Research Libraries in 1985, and in 1997 Smith received the key to the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

In 2020, upon her retirement, Smith was granted the title of Librarian Emerita by Fisk University.

Selected works Originals!: Black Women Breaking Barriers. 2022. Canton, Michigan: Visible Ink Press. Smith, Jessie Carney, Linda T. Wynn and Lean'tin L. Bracks. 2015. The Complete Encyclopedia of African American History. Canton, Michigan: Visible Ink Press. The Complete Encyclopedia of African American History. Heroes and Heroines. 2014 A reference library ed. Chanfont Pennsylvania: African American Publications. Smith, Jessie Carney, and Linda T. Wynn. 2009. Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience. Canton, Michigan: Visible Ink Press. Epic Lives : One Hundred Black Women Who Made a Difference. 1993. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. Images of Blacks in American Culture : A Reference Guide to Information Sources. 1988. New York: Greenwood Press.