After nearly a quarter century helping run the La Grange library, a chapter is ending for longtime trustee

Chicago Tribune

03-07-2025

After dedicating her entire working life to libraries, La Grange Library Trustee Becky Spratford has decided that after 24 years, it's time to end the chapter and retire.
Spratford is no longer a librarian and is retiring from her board role, but she said she's still committed to serving the community.
'I feel really good about stepping away,' Spratford said. 'I'm going to stay involved because I love the library. I'm very involved with Pillars (Community Health), my husband and I are extremely involved, both financially and with our time.'
Spratford was born in New Jersey and went to Amherst College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in American Studies and met her husband, Eric Spratford, now a doctor practicing out of Westchester.
They married in 1998 and moved to La Grange the same year, where she began working for the law libraries of two separate law firms in Chicago.
'It was a really fun time to be in law libraries because it was the end of the Twentieth Century,' Spratford said. 'Westlaw, Lexis, all the databases for them to use … it was the switching from doing the book research to computer research and we were the ones that had to do it for them. So we were involved in all the fun stuff. It was a great training ground when I went to Dominican to get my masters degree in Library Information Science.'
In the Summer of 2000, Spratford got her first official job as a certified librarian at the Berwyn Public Library. But she was also looking for an opportunity to give back to the community, which led her to throw her hat into the ring for an open seat on the La Grange library's Board of Trustees.
'I was looking for places to volunteer,' she said. 'I noticed in the fall that the Citizens Council was looking for someone to run for the Library Board, and I thought, well, I'm going to try this. I never thought of myself as a politician, but I'm not a politician if I'm helping the library.'
In 2001, she won her first of six terms, serving at different times as trustee, board secretary, treasurer, vice president and president.
Spratford is also a member of the Illinois Library Association and the La Grange board's liaison to that organization, as well as the Reaching Across Illinois Library Association and a member of the American Library Association.
She also previously served on the ILA Conference Planning Committee and participated in training for the Illinois Trustee Forum.
No matter what office she held, she always took time to serve on the Finance Committee.
'My goal was to always be efficient and effective with everyone's money,' Spratford said. 'Efficient without ever going over (budget), but also effective, because I understood that when staff would come and say 'we need this,' I was able to ask questions that really got to the heart of the service for the patrons.'
Over the years, Spratford kept running for reelection because, as she said, because 'either no one was running, or something big was happening.'
Some of those big things involved participating in searches for three new library directors, as well as several strategic planning processes.
Another was the process and construction of a new library building in 2007.
'Our building was small and our community was growing,' Spratford said. 'La Grange had been going through some down times, and we were coming back. It wasn't just that the old library was tired, it was too small.'
A new building required a significant infusion of cash, which, due to the Illinois property tax cap, required a referendum.
Spratford said she was proud that during the time the main building was closed, she was in charge of the relocation of services to a location on Shawmut Avenue and the library operated without a break in service.
'We were able to relocate the library and have every book come there and every service still go,' she said.
Spratford stressed the financial efficiency of the board in the roughly 20 years since the building opened.
'For those first 20 years we made sure we saved some money, so that's how we renovated the first floor,' she said. 'We're looking now at doing some renovations on the second floor.
'One of the things I made sure we did was we did an assessment of every system here and we have enough money that if every single system failed, the roof, the boiler, all the systems, we can fix it. You can't forget about those things … our job is to keep this building open and running.'
Spratford said that she wanted to serve on the Board until the original building bonds were paid off, which happened earlier this year, saying 'it was my time to go when the building was paid off.'
She might be retiring from the Board of Trustees, but she will definitely stay busy with freelance writing and her business.
The roots of Spratford's business — RA for All — date back to when she was first hired as a full-time librarian at the Berwyn Public Library.
'I started at the Berwyn Public Library in a department called Readers Advisory,' she said. 'It's basically reading recommendations for adults.
Spratford's web page, raforall.blogspot.com, announces the business's purpose on its main page: 'Training Library Workers to Help Leisure Readers.'
Spratford also edited a book coming out shortly, 'Why I Love Horror,' a collection of essays from 16 of the country's most distinguished writers of horror fiction.
And, just in case she's not busy enough, there's also one final library matter she wants to address.
'One of the things we're missing here that other libraries of our prestige and size and use have, is that we don't have a foundation,' Spratford said.
Separate from the Friends of the Library, she said a foundation would be a 'next step; it's a larger thing. It's more of an endowing organization that ensures the financial health of the library. The director and I have already had talks with local people who are involved with foundations. We'd love to have that start in 2027, at the twentieth year anniversary of opening the building … it's going to be a multi-year process.'