She moved to California as a girl with her parents; she attended Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles.

[1] She helped found the doctoral program in history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

[5] Kibre was a member of the International Committee of Historical Sciences, the United States Subcommission for the History of Universities, and the editorial board of Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries.

She was elected a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 1964, the same year she won the Haskins Medal from the same organization.

[6] Books by Pearl Kibre included The Library of Pico della Mirandola (1936),[7] A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin (1937, revised 1963, with Lynn Thorndike),[8] The Nations in the Mediaeval Universities (1948),[9] Scholarly Privileges in the Middle Ages (1962), Hippocrates Latinus: Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages, Volume 3 (1975),[10] Studies in Medieval Science: Alchemy, Astrology, Mathematics, and Medicine (1984).