Blanche Woolls is a graduate of Indiana University where she holds a bachelors in fine arts and a masters and doctorate in library and information science. She began her professional career as a school librarian in Hammond, Indiana in a K-8 elementary school with 1,245 students. She was appointed the first coordinator of school libraries in that city and served for two years until she moved to Roswell, New Mexico as coordinator there.

After completing her doctorate, she joined the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh (now the School of Information) where she coordinated the school library certificate program, chaired the Department of Library Science for five years and served as chair of the doctoral studies committee for 12 years. She was appointed Director of the School of Library and Information Science (now the School of Information) at San José State University in 1997 and remained there until her retirement in August 2005. 

After her retirement from San Jose, she became a consulting editor for Libraries Unlimited from 2005 until 2019. She is a past president of the American Association of School Librarians and the International Association of School Librarianship.