Virginia Lacy Jones (June 25, 1912 – December 3, 1984) was an American librarian who throughout her 50-year career in the field pushed for the integration of public and academic libraries.

She was researching information for her church's citywide essay contest on "The Values of Attending Sunday School" when she encountered a friendly reference librarian.

[5] Jones recalls, "This experience was a thrilling one for me, and my imagination ran wild at the magic of the St. Louis Public Library, a great storehouse of information, ideas, and inspiration.

I had mixed feelings about doing so... on the other hand, I felt a sense of triumph in outsmarting the blatant and cruel racial discrimination of whites.

Florence Curtis proposed the establishment of regional centers to provide summer classes for these librarians and chose Jones to head the program at the Prairie View A&M College in Texas.

[11] The day following her resignation, Rufus Clement offered Jones a position as catalog librarian at Atlanta University.

The purpose and commitment of the school was to not only train librarians, but to create leaders for the betterment of library services in the South in general, and for African-Americans in particular.

It was also in fall 1941 that she married Edward A. Jones, Professor of French and Chairman of the Foreign Languages Department at Morehouse College.

[13] After she had been teaching for two years at Atlanta University, Virginia Lacy Jones was awarded a second fellowship provided by the General Education Board.

She was the second person to hold this position, after Eliza Atkins Gleason, the first African-American to receive a doctorate in Library Science.

[7] After her retirement, Jones was appointed the first director of the Robert W. Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center,[16] a position she held from 1982 to 1983.

[17] The Robert W. Woodruff Library now houses 18.5 linear feet of these papers, as well correspondences, personal letters, and photographs all pertaining to her life.