Patrick Reakes will serve as interim dean of the George A. Smathers Libraries, effective July 21. Judy Russell, the first Dean of University Libraries, stepped down after 18 years in the role.
“Judy left a really strong tradition of having high-quality Libraries for UF, and I want to make sure we keep moving forward with that legacy. The flagship university should have flagship libraries,” said Reakes.
Reakes has served as the senior associate dean of scholarly resources and services since 2018. His previous positions include associate dean of scholarly resources and services, chair of the humanities and social sciences library, and chair of departmental libraries. Some of his accomplishments at the Libraries include:
- Primary Investigator for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) National Digital Newspaper Program. This was a $1.9M award over 12 years.
- Lead on the Libraries’ participation in the Google Books Project.
- Overseer for branch renovations and improvements in all six on-campus branches.
- Chosen as an ARL Research Libraries Leadership Fellow.
Prior to his career in higher education and librarianship, Reakes spent many years in the business world with his start in the Naval Reserves and the Navy. Reakes said, “My leadership approach has always been to hire good people and let them do their jobs. We’ve done that in the Libraries for many years, so we have really talented employees at all levels of the organization.” 2025 marks his 24th year as a University of Florida (UF) faculty member. He earned his M.S.L.S. in library and information science from Florida State University in 1998 and his undergraduate degree from the UF College of Journalism and Communications.
Some of his goals for this year are to have a successful capital campaign for the Libraries, fill strategic faculty/staff positions, continue to build high-quality digital collections and expand Open Access, and focus on processing and making available additional special collections materials. “I’m looking forward to working with the faculty and staff of the Libraries to continue the successful work already being done and finding ways we can get even better,” said Reakes.
Arguably the biggest Gator fan at the Libraries, Reakes spends his free time running, watching sports with his son Daniel and grilling alongside his better half (also a librarian), Evie.
Reakes will serve as interim dean through June 30, 2026.
