Western Libraries hires Elizabeth Joffrion as director of Heritage Resources

Elizabeth Joffrion has joined the faculty of Western Washington University as director of Heritage Resources. She will lead the Libraries' Special Collections, University Archives and Record Center, and the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies.

“We are delighted to welcome Elizabeth Joffrion back to Western. Her expertise will help us advance Heritage Resources to the benefit of both the campus and community,” said Rick Osen, interim WWU dean of Libraries.

In this newly created position, Joffrion will provide direction for the development and promotion of Heritage Resources, which include valuable and distinctive documentation of the heritage of the university, the local community, and the Pacific Northwest region. 

“Special collections and archives are resources of distinction that are vital to teaching, learning, and research in an academic setting. I am so pleased to return to Western and to the Bellingham community, and I look forward to developing many exciting and innovative initiatives that will promote these extraordinary collections within the university and beyond,” Joffrion said.

Joffrion previously was a senior program officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Preservation and Access, where she coordinated the Preservation Assistance Grants Program. Before joining NEH in 2006, she was the head archivist at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies at Western and affiliated faculty in its graduate program in Archives and Records Management. She has held professional positions at the Smithsonian Institution, North Carolina State Archives and the Historic New Orleans Collection, and has also taught courses on archives and special collections at Catholic University in Washington, DC. She received a master’s degree in History from the University of New Orleans and a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Maryland.

Western Libraries Heritage Resources is comprised of three units that collect and manage valuable and distinctive documentation of Western Washington University, the local community, and the Pacific Northwest region. The Center for Pacific Northwest Studies seeks to enhance public and scholarly understanding of the region’s past and present through expansion of its archival holdings, public programming, and publications. Its archival and manuscript collections document economic, social, cultural and political trends significant to the Pacific Northwest. Western Libraries Special Collections holds unique cultural heritage materials, including the Campus History Collection, the Western Collection, the Northwest Collection, the Rare Book Collection, the Fly Fishing Collection, the Mathes Reading Figurine Collection, and resources in the study of children’s literature. Western’s University Archives and Records Center preserves the institutional records of the university, dating from the first Board of Trustees meeting on July 12, 1895.