Patrick Reakes didn’t think he’d be a librarian. He was a businessman and a veteran long before he considered the possibility. Now, 43 years after his freshman year at the University of Florida, he’s serving as the interim director of the George A. Smathers Libraries.
Although being a librarian was not always his dream, it felt like destiny, Reakes said.
“I sold a business, and I was kind of trying to decide what I wanted to do,” Reakes said.
His wife encouraged him to pursue a library career. She asked him what he wanted to do after he sold his business and supported him when he decided to pursue a graduate degree in library and information science at Florida State University.
Reakes, who took over the position following dean Judith Russell’s departure, spent over two decades building his professional relationship with UF.
He graduated from the UF College of Journalism and Communications in the 1980s and returned to take more coursework in the 1990s to become a professor. In 2001, he took over UF’s former journalism library. Over the years, he served as chair of the Education Library, Architecture and Fine Arts Library and Library West, as well as associate dean for all George A. Smathers Libraries.
“My top priority is to keep the libraries moving forward,” Reakes said. “We’ve got a lot of really good people in place, and we’ve got a lot of really impactful initiatives.”
Reakes’ colleagues said they’ve witnessed his passion firsthand.
Margarita Vargas-Betancourt, a librarian in the Latin American and Caribbean Special Collections, said Reakes’s connections with his staff make him a good leader.
“He knows everybody,” Vargas-Betancourt said. “He walks, he talks with people, that’s how he learns about problems, about what things are running right. The fact that he listens and also shares information, I think that’s his strength.”
Vargas-Beatancourt hopes UF Libraries will remain a national and international leader in librarianship and student support.
With the libraries’ future in mind, Reakes said he’s focused on UF’s upcoming capital campaign, a fundraising effort designed to raise money for various initiatives at the university, expanding digital and special collections, completing an ongoing Google books project in the digital collections and working to integrate ethical AI use into libraries and student use.
His predecessor, Judith Russell, spent 18 years as director before stepping down. She called Reakes the “ideal candidate” to forward the UF libraries.
“I was very pleased to recommend him to the provost and very pleased that the provost selected him for this role,” Russell said.
The hardest part of stepping down is leaving the daily interactions with “such an amazing group of people,” she said. Russell intends to remain involved through research, faculty support and mentorship and she’s confident the libraries are in good hands with Reakes.
“Having worked in so many different roles here gives him just a strength and a diversity in his background in terms of understanding the complexity of what is a relatively complex
organization and group of services,” Russell said. “I think [he has] just a really good personality for it. He's trusted. He's well-liked.”
For Reakes, who calls himself a lifelong Gator, the focus is on student success and is built on his love for the university.
“I bleed orange and blue,” he said.
Contact Swasthi Maharaj at smaharaj@alligator.org. Follow her on X @s_maharaj1611.
