A long-time resident of Ada, Oklahoma before moving to Madison, she became the first woman city council person and then the first woman mayor. Robbins was named Wisconsin Librarian of the Year in 2001. On the occasion of the Oklahoma Library Association Centennial in 2007, she was named one of the state"s 100 Library Legends (living or dead).
Robbins has won awards for her articles and books dealing with the history of librarians and intellectual freedom in the United States. Her best known work is The Dismissal of Mission Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), winner of the Eliza Atkins Gleason Award and the Willa Literary Award for a nonfiction book from Women Writing the W.
