The former director of the Niles-Maine District Library has taken over the top job at Lincolnwood Library.
Susan Dove Lempke replaces former Director Josephine Tucci, per a news release from the library. Tucci started as the director of the Batavia Public Library June 12, according to a Daily Herald report.
Both the Niles and Lincolnwood libraries have seen turbulence in recent months and years. Lempke resigned from her post at the Niles Library two years ago after a new board of trustees took their seats.
Her resignation was one of the first twists in what became a two-year saga of protests, budget cuts and revisions, shouting matches and deadlock at the Niles Library.
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Asked what she had learned through her work with the Niles Library, Lempke said “I feel like I have chosen to be happy by choosing to come work at this library.”
“I have learned the importance of having a board that is entirely supportive of the staff,” she said.
Becky Keane, who now serves as president of the Niles Library Board of Trustees and who backed Lempke’s efforts in Niles, said Lempke would do well in her new role.
“I think she’ll do a wonderful job over there; they’re lucky to have her,” Keane said.
Last summer, Tucci was in charge at Lincolnwood Library when a group of parents began to organize around a book challenge filed regarding a title called “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.”
The pushback over the title and the library’s selection and placement of books pertaining to LGBTQ+ topics culminated in a library board meeting cut short when conflict broke out among attendees and Lincolnwood police ended the meeting. Later reporting showed that Heritage Action, the activist arm of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, had helped the parents organize.
Since then, about 15 staff members at the Lincolnwood Library have left, according to a library spokesperson. The departures included Deputy Director Chris Renkoziak, who has left to become the deputy director of Wood Dale Public Library. Former Adult Services Director Colleen Malone has filled the Deputy Director position, Lempke said.
The library has about 30 full- and part-time employees, the spokesperson said, and is currently hiring for one full time position and two part time positions.
Lempke said one of her first priorities as the new director would to “try to get the staff feeling steady under their feet again… the things that happened in the last year were traumatic for them.”
“I want to show them that now they’re hiring and things are on the upswing and they have a very supportive board, so they can start to feel safe and secure in their jobs again,” she said.
She said hiring in the children’s department would need particular attention. Another initial priority would be drafting the next strategic plan, she said.
In her time at the Niles Library, Lempke said she had never seen a serious book challenge similar to what unfolded in Lincolnwood last year, nor did she have any way to predict whether her tenure at the library would see similar challenges. But she said she thought the conflict over books in Lincolnwood may have passed its peak intensity.
“I think the community has spoken by electing the board members that were previously on the board who were clearly very pro-First Amendment and very (supportive of) keeping books on the shelf,” she said. “In light of that, I don’t know that we’ll hear a lot more.”
Tucci did not immediately return a phone call requesting comment.