Timothy Pyatt, the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair and head of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State, has been appointed dean of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University.

Pyatt joined the University Libraries in June 2011, succeeding previous Huck Chair William Joyce. In the past four years, he has spearheaded many initiatives to deepen the awareness and broaden the use of special collections among researchers, and has provided strong leadership at a time of great change for research libraries and their service models. “Tim has served with distinction at Penn State,” said Barbara Dewey, dean of University Libraries and Scholarly Communications.

One of Pyatt’s most notable initiatives was the creation of the Special Collections Research Travel Grant Award in 2012. This program provides funding for researchers to visit Penn State and use the collections in support of their projects, which include books, book chapters and journal articles. Since its inception, 20 scholars have been awarded grants to travel to Penn State and conduct research in the Special Collections Library, including some from as far afield as Italy and England.

Pyatt is currently serving a three-year term on the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Council, the governing body of the organization. He has held several elected offices for SAA in the past, including chairing the organization’s Committee on Ethics and Professional Conduct. In addition, he has led electronic records workshops for the
society. In 2013 he was named a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists, the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA for outstanding contributions to the archival profession. He also recently completed the Association for Research Libraries’ Fellows Program, an executive leadership program for future senior-level leaders in large research libraries and archives.

Within the University Libraries, he serves as a stakeholder for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) working group. This group is charged with supporting the development of a statewide service hub to enable local content to be entered into the DPLA, a portal of millions of digital collections made available by libraries, museums and archives across the country.

Pyatt will be leaving the University Libraries in July and will assume his new role at Wake Forest on August 3.