Wayne State University has appointed Erik Nordberg as the director of the Walter P. Reuther Library and Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs.
With more than 20 years of archival experience, Nordberg comes to Wayne State from the Michigan Humanities Council in Lansing, Mich., where he served as executive director. Prior to his position with the Council, Nordberg was the university archivist and head of archives at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich., where he played a pivotal role in creating the Keweenaw Digital Archives, a grant-funded, searchable database of digitized historical photographs documenting Michigan’s historic copper mining district. The digital collection continues to grow, more than doubling in size since its establishment in 2005.
Nordberg received a bachelor of arts in combined humanities from the University Of Ulster at Jordanstown in Northern Ireland and a master of philosophy in Anglo-Irish literature from the University of Dublin, Trinity College in the Republic of Ireland. He completed a master’s degree in library and information science at Wayne State University and is currently a doctoral candidate in the program of industrial heritage and archaeology at Michigan Technological University.
“We’re very excited to welcome Erik Nordberg back to Wayne State,” said Sandra Yee, dean of the Wayne State University Library System. “His archival experience and interest in industrial, labor and metro Detroit history will fit in perfectly with the mission of the Reuther Library and be a great asset to Wayne State.”
The author of numerous grants, presentations and articles, Nordberg has research interests in Michigan mining history and a pro-active stance on born-digital records in archives. “It’s important that we carefully select records and provide an environment that we can trust not only to preserve the records, but allow them to remain authentic,” said Nordberg.
Nordberg looks forward to collaborating with campus partners and promoting Wayne State through the Reuther Library. “As part of the Library System, it’s wonderful to work among people with a shared interest in libraries and archives,” said Nordberg. “But I’m also very excited to work with students and faculty—even if they aren’t history majors, there’s still so much the Reuther can add to their studies and research.”
The Reuther Library is the largest labor archives in North America and is home to the collections of numerous unions and labor-related organizations. Its collection strengths extend to the political and community life of urban and metropolitan Detroit, the civil rights movement in Michigan and nationally, and women’s struggles in the workplace. The Reuther Library is also the home of the Wayne State University Archives which houses the University’s official files, records, and documents.
The Wayne State University Library System consists of the university’s six libraries: The David Adamany Undergraduate Library, the Purdy/Kresge Library, the Shiffman Medical Library, the Arthur Neef Law Library, the Science and Engineering Library, and the Reuther Library and the School for Library and Information Science.
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