It was working as a reference assistant for the music division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center a few years ago that persuaded Amy Roberts to pursue a master’s degree in library and information sciences. Today, Roberts is the projects archivist at the Brooklyn College Library, arranging and describing the archives of the Brooklyn chapter of the Young Woman’s Christian Association (YWCA) archives at Brooklyn College. “This job matches closely my interests,” says Roberts, who holds a bachelor’s degree in music and anthropology from Hunter College. She later became interested in how archives can be used to document the history of how ordinary people make history. After obtaining her master’s degree from Queens College, CUNY, she volunteered at the Interference Archive, which is a community archive of activism and social movements. The YWCA collection includes records of discussions about creating an employment bureau to help women entering the job market, as well as surveys the association ran among members at the turn of the 20th Century to determine their changing needs. “In addition to magazines published by the YWCA, there are scrapbooks and minutes of the board with a lot of detail, ledgers, and photos,” Roberts says, “and they all let you see a great sense of community.” The projects archivist position was made possible by an 18-month, $120,631 grant that Associate Professor and College Archivist Colleen Bradley-Sanders received from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. “Julianna Magro’s work laid a solid foundation for Amy Roberts to complete the processing of the collection,” says Bradley-Sanders of the first special projects archivist. Bradley-Sanders gave a talk in January at the YWCA during their photo exhibit ‘Advancing Women’s Empowerment, From Suffrage to Our Future.’ The exhibit included photos from the collection restored by the Brooklyn College Archives staff. “The YWCA has a long history of supporting women’s equality as well as racial equality,” Roberts says. “And these documents—which may have many issues with aging, acidity of materials—attest to that.”
