New Team Member: Morgan Rowe-Morris

Morgan Rowe-Morris’ career path had taken him on several interesting journeys over the years before he made UTA Libraries his new home. 

“It has been a long, strange path to academic librarianship. I am local to North Oak Cliff in Dallas and have spent most of my life living and working in Dallas. Although, I had hit the road several times in my 20s and 30s,” Morgan said. “At various points in the past, I have been a working stage electrician and lighting designer for theatres. I have been a political canvas director. Briefly, I was a speechwriter, occasionally a music critic, and worked for a small nonprofit for a while as an administrator. I just bounced around the country for a long time.” 

 The Southern Methodist University graduate stated that he decided to go to library school at Texas Woman’s University after he spent five years working at Half Price Books. 

“It came to a point at Half Price Books where I needed to make a change and look for another career. I put my application to Texas Women’s University and went to Library School,” Morgan said. “About a year later, they closed that store, Half Price Irving. I took a severance package and started looking for work. I ended up getting a staff job at Texas Woman’s University Dallas Campus Nursing Library.” 

Morgan spent a year and a half at the nursing library when another opportunity presented itself to work for the Dallas Public Library system. At Dallas Public, he worked in several roles. His final project with Dallas Public was at the J. Erik Johnson Central Library, where he oversaw the development and opening of a new $3 million job and workforce center. 

“We spent the next five years moving 2.9 million government documents so that when we did the remodel, we could increase the public space on that floor by about a third of an acre,” Morgan said. “That let us add study rooms. Three conference rooms and seven classrooms. It doubled the size of the job search center and added flexible use space where we could fit people for an event.” 

Morgan said that when the building re-opened to the public after the COVID-19 pandemic, the remodeled City Life, Education and Work Skills unit on the sixth floor at the Dallas Library became the highest-trafficked floor in the building. 

After completing the project, Morgan wanted to get back to working with library patrons in a more direct role. He found that position at UTA Libraries as the Multidisciplinary librarian. In this position, Morgan and his fellow team members work with students and faculty on projects they are undertaking in public affairs and planning, theatre arts, nursing and social work.  

“We support faculty and students in their research. We do pathfinding and navigation or both library and publicly available resources,” Morgan said. “We act as a channel for communication between our certain departments in the library.” 

Morgan stated he wanted to thank everyone for making him feel so welcome here at UTA Libraries. He enjoyed the chance to get to know everyone, dig into the work and be a helping hand when needed.