https://cunyarchives.commons.gc.cuny.edu/team

Natalie Milbrodt (she/her) is a practitioner, educator and consultant in the field of Library and Information Science, specializing in post-custodial and community-led archiving practice with an emphasis on project development, oral history, and metadata best practices.

Before joining CUNY as University Archivist, Natalie led Queens Public Library’s Metadata Services division, responsible for the system’s cataloging and digitization efforts. In 2010, Milbrodt developed the Queens Memory Project, an award-winning community-led, post-custodial archives program collecting oral histories, photographs and other records of local and personal histories in Queens, New York.

Milbrodt serves on the Oral History Association’s Metadata Working Group, as adjunct faculty for the Queens College MLIS program, co-founder of the Community Archiving Happy Hour, and as an advisory board member for New York State Historical Records, The Municipal Art Society of New York’s Enduring Culture Initiative, Design Dream Lab, and Wikitongues. Her cultural heritage consulting clients include The Wildlife Conservation Fund, UCL Qatar, the Internet Archive, and the Leo Baeck Institute.

What are the qualities and motivations driving our work as librarians and archivists? Milbrodt will share global and local stories of the courageous care for humanity that is both desperately needed and in abundance all around us. She will also share updates from the Cultivating Archives and Institutional Memory initiative, now halfway to its completion. This once-in-a-generation project serves archivists working across CUNY to explore and unify collections and practices.