"To me, this is just a next step—an advanced step—but it’s in line with everything I’ve done my entire life,” Melissa Weber explains, after being selected as the curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University.

The Hogan Jazz Archive, part of the Howard-Tilton Library at Tulane University, is one of the city’s leading research centers for the study of New Orleans jazz and many other music genres. It contains subs...