As the center moves beyond the pandemic, Bivins plans to add more items reflecting the African diaspora and make those materials more accessible

By Colin Moynihan, For the New York Times

Joy Bivins, who joined the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem last year, has been named director of the center.

Bivins joined the Schomburg — a division of the New York Public Library and a leading repository for archival materials related to African, African diaspora and African American life, history and culture — in 2020 as an associate director of collections and research services. Before that, she had served as the chief curator of the International African American Museum, in Charleston, S.C., and the director of curatorial affairs at the Chicago History Museum.

“The skill set that Joy has is absolutely critical for the moment that we are in,” said William Kelly, the public library’s Andrew W. Mellon director of the research libraries. “She has been such a caring, inspirational leader over the last extremely challenging year.”

The Schomburg’s previous director, Kevin Young, a poet and editor, left when the Smithsonian named him the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Bivins was selected after what the New York Public Library described as “an exhaustive national search.” She will begin serving as director on June 21, becoming the first woman to run the center since Jean Blackwell Hutson, who served as its leader from 1948 to 1980.

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