New Niagara County Historical Society executive director

The Niagara County Historical Society has announced the arrival of its new executive director, Michelle Harris. Harris succeeds Melissa Dunlap, who will retire at the end of March.

Harris holds a master’s degree in library and information studies from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She will be familiar to many Niagara County residents as a previous executive library director of the Niagara Falls Public Library and executive director of the Niagara Falls Public Library local history department. She has also served as director of libraries in North Carolina and Colorado.

While at the Niagara Falls Library, Harris developed and oversaw a project to catalog and preserve the entire local history collection. Her responsibilities also included staff management, strategic planning, grant writing, policy development, archival projects and overseeing restoration of local painting and artifacts.

“We conducted a lengthy search for our new executive director, and we are very pleased to welcome Michelle Harris to the position,” said Thomas Dublinski, president of the Historical Society’s board of directors. “We have been very fortunate to have Melissa Dunlap serve us so well for the last 33 years, and we are sure that Michelle will step into her place and help us move forward into the next many years to come.”