Member Spotlight - Betsy Adamowski

Serving Our Public Committee

January 24, 2024

This week's member spotlight is on Betsy Adamowski, executive director of the Wheaton Public Library. Betsy has been involved in various ILA committees and served as ILA president in 2015. She is currently a member of the ILA Advocacy and Serving Our Public Committees.

We asked Betsy to tell us a little about herself and answer a few professional and amusing questions. Continue reading to find out more about Betsy.

A little background on Betsy

I am proud to call myself a South Sider from Dolton. I was lucky to have attended Illinois State University, majoring in Library Science for a B.S. and immediately after, Northern Illinois University to receive my M.L.S. I worked for a short time at Oak Lawn Public Library before I went to the Itasca Community Library for 25 years. I left Itasca in 2013 and went to Wheaton Public Library and am still there. I was a business librarian and a children’s librarian for 11 years before I moved on to be a director and have been directing public libraries for 25 years. 

I served as the ILA President, as well as multiple leadership positions, within the Systems, ILA and the Illinois State Library. I am honored to be a past Illinois Librarian of the Year. I am proud to have co-founded the Director’s University 1.0 and 2.0 with Library Consultant, Kathy Parker and co-authoring the Ready, Set, Advocate tool kit with Past ALA Director, Keith Fiels.  However, in spite of all that, I am most proud that I have a wonderful husband, Gary, and two beautiful daughters, Beth and Emily. I am a White Sox fan, I enjoy breweries, binge watching tv shows, reading great fiction and eating at the many restaurants in my hometown, Geneva. Life is good and I am blessed.

How did you get your start in libraries?

I got my first job when I was 15 years old at the Dolton Public Library. I was lucky to have had two great mentors, at that library, Kathy Bloomberg and Jamie Bukovac, both who became great leaders in Illinois libraries. Kathy and Jamie were tall, beautiful, smart, professional and could wear a suit like no other. I wanted to be them. I will never forget how they made me feel at 15 years old. They made me feel important to the library and that the work that I was doing was making a difference. It was a lesson well learned and I try to carry that message to the staff that I have been lucky to manage.

Best advice you've received since starting your career in libraries?

People will forget what you say, but they will never forget how you make them feel. I look at this quote every day because it is taped on my computer. In my past life, I was a children’s librarian and this quote made me understand how important it was to make children feel special, heard and valued. I carried that quote with me when I became a director, a mother, and a library leader. It has served me well.

Any advice to newcomers working in libraries? 

Get involved, make friends in the profession and be kind. Getting involved in the profession will allow for new friends, mentors, colleagues to be discovered. As the library career evolves, new-found friends, mentors and colleagues, will grow and a select few will rise up to be the group you will need to stay sane. Be kind to everyone you work with and meet because the library world is a small one and word gets around fast so be careful what you say, who are with and how you present yourself.

When and why did you become a member of ILA?

I hate to say it, but I think I became an ILA member, decades ago, in order to get a discount on the conference cost. But, once I got into ILA, I never left it. I truly love ILA and those who know me, know this. I love what the Association does for our library profession, the initiatives it promotes, the advocacy that it does, the creativity that it has and the global awareness that it has with iREAD. I really am honored to have been, and still am, a part of it.

How has being a member of ILA helped you professionally? 

If you cut me, I will bleed library, if you cut me twice, I will bleed library and ILA. ILA, the Illinois State Library, the DuPage Library System, and the Reaching Across Illinois Library System, all made me who I am today. Being a member of ILA gave me the courage to get involved, find friends, discover myself, raise my voice, and how to be an effective leader.

What is your proudest professional achievement to date?

This is a hard one for me because there are so many achievements, and I don’t say that with arrogance. I have achieved much of what I have done because of the people I have surrounded myself with. The one achievement that I did on my own was to run for ILA President. 

I was nominated once and turned it down because I did not feel ready. I was not ready because I truly believe that if you run or accept an appointment to lead, you better do it with total confidence. (Who, reading this, has had a bad leader because that person took the position to only put it on their resume?) I was not ready the first time because I did not have strong confidence in how to do advocacy. Because of that, I agreed, instead, to chair the Advocacy Committee and used that position to start many new and improved advocacy initiatives, tools and programs. 

When I finally was ready to run for ILA President, I knew that I could do the advocacy work needed for ILA and I made advocacy my platform. So, my proudest professional achievement is being ILA President and creating the advocacy tools, programs and initiatives that I believe have helped ILA in the last decade.

Hardcover, paperback, e-reader, audiobook, or all?

I love a physical book, both hardcover and paperback.

Favorite author?

There are so many! I am struggling with this question because how can I choose just one? The librarian in me wants to be smart and pick an adult classic author, like Jane Austen, but the “Betsy” in me wants to pick Sophia Kinsella. I will leave it at that.

If you were stuck on a deserted island, what five books would you bring with you to pass the time until being rescued?

Oh no, another tough question!  Well, if I was going on a vacation tomorrow (I am writing this on 11.10.2023), and my plane crashed and I survived, the books that I would have in my carry on would be:   

  • The 25 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: 25th Anniversary by John C. Maxwell
  • The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
  • Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar
  • Stories I’d Tell in Bars by Jen Lancaster
  • The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present by Paul McCartney

Cat or Dog?

Again, a tough question! I have had both and loved both so much. There is nothing like a cat who snuggles up to you and loves you, but there is nothing like a dog who you can walk and play with. I am going to break the rules here and say both.

Favorite film, podcast, or television show? 

Who can’t get enough of the TV show, Friends. R.I.P. Matthew Perry. I do watch the movie, You’ve Got Mail every year. In my next life I will have a bookstore just like Shop Around the Corner.

One person you would like to meet, dead or alive why?

One person, how can I do this? While I am thinking of many famous people, I am going to say my Great Grandma, Elizabeth Kolzer, who, when her husband did not come back at the end of WWI, left her home in Dachau, Germany, by herself with two little girls, on a ship to Ellis Island, United States. How scared she must have been and how brave was she to do that? I would love to meet her and hear her story.

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