A student of Melvil Dewey, she founded the third library school in the United States at Drexel University in 1892 and served as its director until her death in 1909.

At the 1889 meeting of the American Library Association in St. Louis, Kroeger was recognized by noted librarian Charles Ammi Cutter who conveyed her suggestions about the relationship between cataloging and public service.

That year, she enrolled in the New York State Library School at Albany, where she studied under Melvil Dewey.

[2][3] In 1908, with Sarah W Cottell, Kroeger published Aids to Book Selection for the ALA Library Handbook series, an updated and expanded version of a pamphlet originally published by the Pennsylvania Free Library Commission in 1903.

[3] In 1925, the library school at the Drexel Institute established the Alice B. Kroeger Memorial Scholarship.

The Guide would see eleven print editions and five chief editors over the next seventy-five years, becoming known as "the premier compendium of reference materials for North American libraries.