Lincoln Library director fired
Lincoln Library director Summer Beck-Griffith was fired Monday, after serving a little less than a year as director.
While Beck-Griffith confirmed her firing to The State Journal-Register, she did not offer further comment.
Amber Sabin, a spokeswoman for City Water, Light & Power who has been handling communications for the mayor's office before new communications director Haley Wilson takes over, said in an email that Beck-Griffith was no longer employed by the city.
More: Community engagement manager for Lincoln Library dismissed
Sabin said that Curtis Mann, who manages the Sangamon Valley Collection, the local history and genealogy collection at Lincoln Library and serves as city historian, will be the acting director.
Next month will mark Mann's 30th year with the library.
Beck-Griffith, 40, was the subject of a letter of support from over 30 employees from the library, distributed by the library's community engagement manger, Hillary Rains.
Rains said she was terminated Friday for misuse of city resources because she had prepared the letter on a city computer. The letter appeared on library letterhead and was posted on its Facebook page.
Mann was a signatory to the letter.
Gene Mitchell, staff representative for AFSCME Council 31, who said in a text statement to the SJ-R Monday that union members shouldn't have to worry about being approached by employers to make a public statement on behalf of management.
"That dynamic is inherently coercive," Mitchell said. "AFSCME members speak for themselves.
"Management from the city of Springfield should stop engaging our members except to conduct the business of the public or in the exercise of our collective bargaining agreement."
Mayor Misty Buscher said last week that she was looking into some of the city's grant administration "because some of our grants might require our library director be a librarian."
Beck-Griffith has graduate and undergraduate degrees in communications from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is trained in trauma informed care and de-escalation. She replaced central Illinois native Rochelle Hartman as acting director and then as director after Hartman was fired by Mayor Jim Langfelder in January 2022.
While she was unanimously confirmed by the city council on July 5, there were some members who brought up the fact that Beck-Griffith did not have a library science degree.
A Springfield native, Beck-Griffith joined the library as the community engagement manager in 2020 after working in Kansas City, Missouri.
Beck-Griffith helped the library partner with various local organizations to reach the community, including the Springfield Housing Authority, Downtown Springfield, Inc. and the Springfield Art Association. She also was involved in creating the Lincolns4Lincoln Read-A-Thon.
Beck-Griffith pushed for the purchase of a nearly $482,000 Bookmobile, widely seen as "a mobile branch" of the library. The city council signed off on its purchase late last year with delivery expected by the end of the year.
The library added a number of pop-up events last year in Wards 2, 3 and 4.
“Quality libraries are the sort of things that keep families and people engaged in a city," Beck-Griffith said at the time. "This is a big move in the right direction to show Springfield how a vibrant and thriving library can impact their daily lives."
Returning books to the library Tuesday, Brenda Poston of Springfield said she was disappointed by Beck-Griffith's firing.
"I did not support that decision," Poston said. "I don't think she's had enough of an opportunity in that position to prove what she really can do and what she can bring to the library."
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Summer Beck-Griffith fired as director of Springfield's public library
