Neal Wyatt has been named reviews editor of Library Journal, LJ editor-in-chief Meredith Schwartz announced today.

“I’m delighted to welcome Neal to the LJ staff,” said Schwartz. “She’s been part of our team for well over a decade as a freelance contributor and most recently, creator of the Book Pulse daily book news bulletin. I can’t wait for her to integrate her deep expertise in and enthusiasm for collection development and readers’ advisory into our work full time. I look forward to partnering with her to make LJ’s reviews and book news even more useful to our core audience of librarians as they serve their readers.”

In addition to her work with LJ, Wyatt is co-editor of Reference and User Services Quarterly’s (RUSQ) RA column and sits on the RUSQ Advisory Board. She’s worked in public and academic libraries across public and technical services departments in collection development, acquisitions, and reference. She’s served as president of the American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) and chair of the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES). She created the Readers’ Advisory Research and Trends Forum, The Reading List, The Listen List, and The CODES List: Cookbooks, and was instrumental in the creation of the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, the Sophie Brody Award, and the Zora Neale Hurston Award. She chaired The Notable Books Council and created the RUSA Book and Media Awards event.

Wyatt is the author of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Nonfiction (2009) and The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Fiction, co-authored with Joyce Saricks (2018). She is currently working on a new edition of Readers’ Advisory Service in the Public Library with Saricks. In addition to her MSLS, Wyatt has an MA in English Literature and a PhD in Media, Art, and Text and teaches new media and textual studies. She is an LJ Mover and Shaker and received the Margaret E. Monroe Award, the Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award, and the Virginia Library Association/SIRS Intellectual Freedom Award.

Wyatt steps into her new role on October 26, succeeding Kiera Parrott, who recently took over as director of Connecticut’s Darien Library.