Ronald F. Dow, associate dean of University Libraries, The Pennsylvania State University, has been named dean of River Campus libraries at the University of Rochester, effective Sept. 1.
Dow will oversee a library system serving the information needs of students, faculty, and staff in the arts, sciences, engineering, business, and education. The River Campus libraries, which have a staff of 128 plus approximately 250 student assistants, contain more than two million volumes. Their collections also have 7,500 journal subscriptions, extensive microform holdings, hundreds of titles on CD and other electronic formats, government documents, thousands of maps, and a distinguished collection of rare books and manuscripts.
"Ron Dow brings to the University a combination of outstanding experience and a level of enthusiasm for his work that is unmatched," said Provost Charles E. Phelps. "I look forward eagerly to working with him."
Dow has been associate dean at Penn State since 1993, and was assistant dean there from 1990 to 1993. He has been responsible for strategic and facilities planning and for administrative services for the University Park campus and for the 18 libraries of the Commonwealth Education System located throughout the state.
He chaired the committee that produced the program plan for a $25 million expansion to the main research library, in University Park, and was the lead administrator on the architectural design for the resulting Joe and Sue Paterno Library, now being built at the end of a successful $13.75 million capital campaign.
Before joining Penn State, he was director of libraries for Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc., New York. The library maintained book and periodical collections, a corporate document archives, and a major microfiche collection of SEC filings. Dow organized and managed the consolidation of the libraries of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, Shearson, American Express Co., American Express International Bank, and E.F. Hutton, building one of the largest and most extensive client-centered research libraries in New York City.
He also has served as director of the graduate business library, New York University, as assistant branch librarian and branch reference librarian at the Felberg Library, Dartmouth College, and as assistant reference librarian at Burke Library, Hamilton College.
He holds a B.A. from Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and an M.S. degree in library science from Syracuse University. He has studied public administration at the graduate level at New York University, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in higher education and public administration at Penn State.
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