Erin Rowley Promoted to Rank of Full Librarian at UB

by DENISE WOLFE

Erin Rowley, head of science and engineering library services and engineering librarian in the University at Buffalo Libraries, has been promoted to the rank of librarian, also known as full librarian, effective Sept. 1, 2026.

Promotion to librarian is the highest professional rank a librarian can achieve at UB, recognizing superior contributions across four areas: excellence throughout a candidate's career, impact on the communities served, research or scholarship that has influenced the field and a national or international reputation among peers.

"Erin's promotion to full librarian reflects the excellence, leadership and scholarly impact she has demonstrated throughout her career. Her contributions to engineering librarianship have brought distinction to UB Libraries and have advanced the profession nationally. We are thrilled to celebrate this achievement with her," said Jake Carlson, associate university librarian for Research, Collections and Outreach.

Rowley has led science and engineering library services since 2018. She joined UB Libraries in 2017 as senior assistant librarian and was promoted to associate librarian in 2023. Before entering academic librarianship, she spent eight years at Bureau Veritas Consumer Product Services, where she rose to supervisor of the company's Information Resources Center. 

Rowley's scholarship centers on technical standards in engineering librarianship. She co-edited Teaching and Collecting Technical Standards: A Handbook for Librarians and Educators (Purdue University Press, 2023), which won the Engineering Libraries Division's 2024 Innovation in Access to Engineering Information Award and the State University of New York Librarians Association's 2024 Excellence in Scholarship Award. Another paper she co-authored, "Systematic Reviews in the Engineering Literature: A Scoping Review," received the division's 2025 Best Publication Award. Her research also has appeared in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) Access journal and IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

She has built a national reputation through the ASEE Engineering Libraries Division, where she served as program chair through June 2026 after a term as secretary/treasurer, and where she previously chaired the Awards Committee for four years. She began her term as the division's chair in June 2026, becoming the first UB librarian and the first librarian from any SUNY institution to hold that position. At UB, Rowley teaches STEM Librarianship as an adjunct instructor in the Information Science Department and provides library instruction across more than a dozen engineering courses each year. Her service includes UB's Faculty Senate Library Committee, the Faculty Executive Committee, the Collections Committee, where she serves as collections coordinator for science and engineering, the Lockwood Library renovation project and the SUNY 2025 ScienceDirect Renewal Task Force.