Robin Rausch retired in 2022 after a 34-year career at the Library of Congress. As a music reference specialist she focused her interest on women’s roles in American cultural history. Later she became Head of Reader Services in the Music Division, and managed the operation of the Performing Arts Reading Room, the service point for one of the largest music research collections in the world.

She is a contributing author to The Cambridge Companion to Amy Beach (Cambridge University Press, 2023); “Very Good for an American”: Essays on Edward MacDowell (Pendragon Press, 2017); The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd edition, (Oxford University Press, 2013); Women in the Arts: Eccentric Essays in Music, Visual Arts, and Literature (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010); and American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women’s History and Culture in the United States (Library of Congress, 2002).

At the Library she curated a number of exhibitions including Baseball’s Greatest Hits: The Music of Our National Game (2017); Chamber Music: The Life and Legacy of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (2015-16); and A Century of Creativity: The MacDowell Colony 1907-2007 (2007).

Robin has written and lectured extensively on the MacDowell Colony, including a history written for the commemorative centennial publication A Place for the Arts: the MacDowell Colony, 1907-2007 (The MacDowell Colony, 2006). She has twice been a featured guest on BBC Radio 3’s Composer of the Week program, speaking on the MacDowell Colony’s history and women composers who worked there. She continues to explore the lives of women in the arts in her research and writing.