The Springfield Metropolis Council unanimously approved the appointment of Summer season Griffith as Lincoln Library’s long lasting director as additional than two dozen of her co-employees cheered her on Tuesday.
Griffith, 40, who joined the library as the group engagement manager in 2020, has served as acting director due to the fact Feb. 10.
The library’s previous director, Rochelle Hartman, was fired Jan. 20 after two and a half a long time.
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Addressing some of the general public library’s technology demands and community outreach are a couple of matters on Griffith’s to-do listing.
Funding is also an problem. With about 40 comprehensive-time and component-time staff members and an once-a-year spending budget of a little over $5.4 million, the library is “considerably understaffed and underserved and we want to see that go up so that we can do extra for the local community,” Griffith claimed after the assembly. “The truth is we have a lot of work to do.”
Any problems that Griffith, who grew up in Springfield, failed to have a master’s diploma in library science were subtle in advance of the assembly.
About a dozen of community librarians with MLS degrees supported Griffith, including previous director Nancy Huntley.
Griffith is skilled in trauma educated treatment and de-escalation. She has a learn of arts diploma and a bachelor of arts diploma, both in communications, from the University of Illinois Springfield.
“They claimed really plainly what you need in library management is not essentially fairly who can catalog guides, but any individual who has the working experience of running — non-financial gain administration, governmental affairs — and has the management capabilities I do,” Griffith said.
Ward 8 Ald. Erin Conley stated previously that it was her “priority that we have someone who has a powerful history in library sciences which contains formal training to guide the library.”
But Conley professed that she “often retains an open up brain about these kinds of selections” and that the credentialed librarians “spoke highly” of how factors were being likely over the last months below Griffith’s leadership.
Mayor Jim Langfelder mentioned Griffith’s communication with staff is “why she’s been in a position to shift the library in a constructive path in a small time frame.”
Griffith reported the library is getting methods to greater train and professionalize its protection workers. The library has three whole-time proprietary officers.
“We know we have some challenges,” Griffith reported. “We want to handle (them). We know there is trouble conduct. We have individuals use our library for nefarious purposes and (the obstacle is) how we can root that out and keep on to place equitable guidelines in spot so that the entire local community can visit us.
“Irrespective of socioeconomic position, all people today are welcome to patronize the library. You are welcome to use our computer labs. You happen to be welcome to browse guides and magazines, use a tranquil space to use the world-wide-web. What is actually not Okay is, frankly, making use of the library for unlawful uses.”
Griffith explained the library continues to work with the Heartland Continuum of Care, a team of additional than 20 corporations addressing the prolonged-time period wants of Springfield’s homeless population.
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“We know there are holes in companies,” Griffith said. “I will say time and time yet again, a library are not able to clear up a homelessness crisis. A library are not able to address a methamphetamine crisis. A library are unable to remedy an very affordable housing disaster. It’s not the library’s work to do that. It really is the community’s career to do that. The library bears the load of that, but it really is not our work to remedy it.
“We glance ahead to what (the Continuum of Treatment) strategic strategy says. We know a very low barrier day shelter is totally needed for our city, so we stand by those matters and we’ll aid the agencies carrying out the superior work, Washington Road Mission, Encouraging Arms. We companion with them and glance for their expansion and we are going to support them at any level we can simply because that is what is necessary for the library not to be the small barrier working day shelter.”
A grant Griffith wrote previous 12 months has built “pop-up libraries” in wards 2, 3 and 4 a reality.
Griffith stated she would like to see “micro branches” in the course of the city. A Bookmobile has been funded by a belief, but in February council associates voted down dollars to staff two Degree 1 library positions.
Griffith is pushing to get all of the desktops made use of by the community changed.
Griffith will make $94,000.
She and her spouse, Matthew Griffith, a significant treatment nurse at Springfield Memorial Clinic, stay in Springfield and have two small children.
This story will be current.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, [email protected], twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
