Barbara Harkins joined the staff of the Office of NIH History as Archivist in May 2008.

Previously employed as Special Collections Librarian and Archivist at Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky, Ms. Harkins brings 20 years of library experience working with special collections and archives in academic health science collections and university archives collections.

Previous positions include serving as archivist and project manager for an NEH-funded grant processing manuscript collections using encoded archival description at Oregon State University and participating in the initiation of a digital library using ContentDM along with ten years as curatorial assistant at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Reynolds Historical Library. She received her M.L.I.S from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Her research interests include history of medicine, archival administration, digital archival practices including metadata and content management as well as online searching methods and behavior.