[4][5] She majored in music education at Lebanon Valley College, where she earned an undergraduate degree in 1956.

[6] She trained as a librarian at Western Reserve University,[7] where she wrote her 1957 master's thesis on the history of Edwin A. Fleisher Music Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Later in her career, she completed doctoral studies in library science at Florida State University, with a 1978 dissertation titled The Genesis of American Music Librarianship: 1902-1942.

[8] She studied violin, working with Mischa Mishakoff, and played with the Cleveland Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra during college.

[13] In 2003, the MLA established the annual Carol June Bradley Award for Historical Research in Music Librarianship.