Spencer Gilbert Shaw (August 15, 1916 – June 16, 2010) was an American librarian and educator specializing in library services to children.

His father worked at the Hartford National Bank & Trust Company, while his mother was a homemaker and community organizer who supervised the desegregation of the workforce of G. Fox & Co. during the 1940s.

[2][3] Raised in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood of northwest Hartford, Shaw was the only African American student in his primary and secondary schools.

Shaw delivered lectures and held teaching residencies in Australia, Brazil, Cyprus, England, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

At the invitation of Upper Albany branch manager Tracie D. Hall, a former student from the University of Washington, he volunteered as a storyteller at the Hartford Public Library in his late 80s.