Robin M. Katz is a librarian and an educator who works to connect people to primary sources in meaningful and innovative ways. She is committed to diversity in libraries and archives: improving the range of collections, fostering new users and advocates, and diversifying the field of library professionals.
She is currently Outreach + Public Services Archivist at Brooklyn Historical Society, where she co-directs Students and Faculty in the Archives (SAFA), a collaborative postsecondary education program which builds document analysis, information literacy, and critical thinking skills in first-year undergraduates. Independent evaluators have found that students who visited the archives through SAFA are more engaged and perform better than their peers.
From 2009 – 2011, she held the position of Library Assistant Professor / Digital Initiatives Outreach Librarian for the University of Vermont Libraries’ Center for Digital Initiatives. Through a two-year IMLS grant, she helped students, faculty, staff, scholars, and community members participate as users and creators of digital resources in an open, collaborative environment.
After teaching English to high school students in Post-Katrina New Orleans and Strasbourg, France, Robin M. Katz received a Master of Library and Information Science from Kent State University in 2009.
While at Kent, she was one of the first Gerald H. and Victoria C. T. Read Graduate Assistants in Special Collections and Archives. She also held leadership positions in the graduate student chapter of the Society of Ohio Archivists, led Summer Reading Project book discussions, and participated in a Black-Jewish Diversity Awareness trip to Washington, DC. In 2008, Katz spent the summer as the Digital Library and Metadata Development Intern at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where she developed skills in emerging technologies and digital libraries.
She graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a double major in English and American Literature & European Cultural Studies. She minored in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and studied abroad at the University of Leeds’ School of English. At Brandeis, Katz was involved with the Arab-Jewish Dialogue Group and held an internship at Beacon Press in Boston.
She was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Her career path was influenced by her parents, a commercial printer and a reading teacher. She speaks American Sign Language, French, and some Hebrew.
