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Glendora Johnson-Cooper is a tenured social sciences librarian in the Arts & Sciences Libraries at the University at Buffalo . Ms. Johnson-Cooper earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology (1984) and her Master of Library Science degree (1987) from the University at Buffalo . For a brief time, she worked in the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library system. In 1988, she joined the University Libraries where she has assumed a variety of responsibilities over time. Since 1992, she has managed the Jean Blackwell Hutson Library Residency Program ( http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/residency/ ) which recruits underrepresented individuals (African-American, Asian-American, Latina/o, and Native-American) into the field of academic librarianship. Her work with the residency program has allowed her to mentor a host of underrepresented students. Ms. Johnson-Cooper is on a mission to recruit as many people of color as possible into the field of academic librarianship.

Prior to the pursuit of her library science degree, Johnson-Cooper was one of the founding members of the Black Dance Workshop (1967-1974) which evolved into the Center for Positive Thought (CPT) (1974-1985), a multi-cultural arts center which housed a professional dance company, Kariamu & Company; the School of Movement dance school; the Museum of African and African American Art & Antiquities; and Watu Sokoni, the museum shop. For close to two decades Ms. Johnson-Cooper served as administrator of the CPT which had a dynamic, cultural presence in the Western New York community and provided a venue for the delivery of African-centered art and culture into the lives of countless people, young and old.

Ms. Johnson-Cooper is active professionally in the American Library Association, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, the State University of New York Librarians Association and the American Sociological Association. She is the 1997 recipient of the State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Librarianship. She is active on many Libraries' and University committees. She has served as a board member for the Erie County Cultural Resources Advisory Board, Shea's Performing Arts Center, the Arts Council of Buffalo and Erie County , Pick of the Crop Dance and Music Ensemble and been a peer review panel member for several programs for the New York State Council on the Arts.

A native of Lackawanna , New York , Ms. Johnson-Cooper is the proud daughter of Rev. Carris S. Johnson, Sr. and Glendora Jackson-Johnson, both deceased. She is the youngest of eight siblings and the wife of Buffalo artist William Y. Cooper.