She later attended Yale University and received a Master of Science degree in 1953.
In 1973, she earned a MLS degree from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.[1] Smith became a reference librarian for the District of Columbia Public Library in 1939, and remained in this position till 1943.
She worked as a librarian in Hawaii and a translator in Panama during the last years of the second World War.
She became the Acting Chief of Acquisitions at the National Institutes of Health Library in 1959.
In 1965, Smith joined the Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL), where she worked as an Acting Director in 1972, and 1977 through 1979.