Joy Novak

Joy Novak is the head of Special Collections Management at Washington University Libraries. In this role, she oversees all curatorial and collection management activities for the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections, which includes collection development, instruction, reference, outreach, and processing. She is project director the National Endowment of the Humanities, Eyes on the Prize II Interview Digitization and Dissemination Project, digitizing the 182 interviews created in the production of the seminal documentary series. She serves on WashU’s University Management Team and Library Management Council and is a member of the Society of American Archivist, Midwest Archives Conference, and National Council of Public History. From 2007-2015, she was the Collections Manager for the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, a political poster archive in Los Angeles.

Novak earned her BA in History and English Literature from Washington University, her MA in Public History from the University of California, Riverside, and her PhD in Information Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her doctoral research focused on activism and social justice in archival practice.