Q. Who was Mabel Zoe Wilson?

Mabel Zoe Wilson was the first full-time librarian of Western Washington University, and the namesake of the Wilson building. She was a strong advocate for the library and worked as a librarian from 1902 to 1945. She was instrumental in developing the library, and with the help of her student staff, created a card catalog and classified every title of the library by hand. Western’s digital asset management platform, MABEL – which stands for Multimedia Archives Based Electronic Library - was also named in homage to her, in recognition of the tremendous role she played in our institutional history, and also of her legacy that lives on today.