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, confirmed in an email that Beck-Griffith is 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 anniversary with the library.
Beck-Griffith 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. She was terminated Friday.
Mayor Misty Buscher said last week that she was looking into “some of our grant administration because some of our grants might require our library director be a librarian and Summer currently is not.”
Beck-Griffith has graduate and undergraduate degrees in communications and is trained in trauma informed care and de-escalation. She has been with the library since 2020, replacing Rochelle Hartman as acting director then 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 she 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.
This story will be updated.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, [email protected], twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.