Tansey worked to develop a "universal" slide classification scheme that would serve the needs of both catalogers and patrons.

Her work “Potential Uses of Slide Classification Data Bases in Art History,” was in 1st international Conference of Art History  Volume II in Pisa, Italy in 1978.

“Classification of Research Photographs and Slides,” was published in Library Trends, January 1975.

Slide Collection Index Application was published in International Business Machines, 1973.

She also assisted her husband, Dr. Richard Tansey, with editing five editions of Gardner's Art Through the Ages as a bibliographer, and she worked on the index in Cohen's Study Guide for Art through the Ages.