Librarian of the Year award a career capstone for Downers Grove’s Milavec

Calling it the “capstone of a career well spent,” Downers Grove Public Library Director Julie Milavec recently was named the Illinois Library Association Librarian of the Year.

Milavec first became involved in library work as a youth volunteer at the Joliet Public Library—where her father was the director for more than three decades.

Knowing Milavec understood the Dewey Decimal System, the librarians quickly put her to work shelving books.

However, Milavec’s family connection to librarianship goes back a bit further.

Her grandfather also was a librarian and served as the executive director of the Illinois State Library and also the associate director at the Chicago-based American Library Association.

In addition, he was a professor of library science at Florida State where Milavec earned her library science degree.

Milavec, who will retire in March 2026, has had a 30-year career as a librarian with 25 of those years spent as a library director and is looking forward to “traveling, gardening and yoga.”

As director of the Downers Grove Public Library since 2016, Milavec led the library through 10 years of capital projects, including two partial renovations and a roof replacement, without taking out bonds.

She also was instrumental in the revitalization of the Downers Grove Public Library Foundation, an organization that raises money to support programming, collections and artwork at the library.

Under Milavec’s leadership, the library eliminated fines, established auto-renewals, created restricted-use cards for teens [without guardian approval] and unhoused patrons and installed outside pickup lockers to improve access to the library and its resources.

Recently, the library partnered with Downers Grove Grade School District 58 to make obtaining a library card part of school registration.

“Our aim is that all kids in Downers Grove will have a library card,” she said.

She also led library staff on equity training and created and implemented an equity strategic plan, which resulted in adjusted internal practices in hiring, programming and displays.

Calling the “COVID years” among the most challenging of her career, Milavec said when the pandemic began to slow, the library became the center of a controversy over programming connected to a National Coming Out Day teen program--Drag Queen Bingo.

Due to threats, the library canceled the program; however, it continued to be a strong advocate for library values and the importance of LGBTQ+ materials and programming in libraries.

“We are here to serve everyone in the community,” Milavec said.

Since 2020, the library has been on a journey to identify groups that we “were missing in the community because libraries are supposed to be about access for everyone,” she said.

To that end, library programming and services includes a book club for developmentally disabled adults and expanding home delivery for people who are physically unable to make it into the library.

The library also has made great strides in serving its teen population. It has “just blossomed,” Milavec said.

Milavec wasn’t the only Downers Grove library administrator recognized by the Illinois Library Association.

For her work in the teen section of the library, teen services coordinator Jade Parks was named Young Adult Library Professional for 2025.

During Parks tenure at the library, she has transformed the unstaffed teen room into a flourishing young adult community space that now has experienced a 25% increase in use.

Parks also revamped the area with teen-friendly furniture, stocked the room with supplies such as chargers and dry-erase boards and expanded passive programming with items such as maker kits and weekly activities to build positive relationships between teens and staff.

With the modifications to the teen section thanks to changes in the library’s strategic plan, the library saw a significant decrease in incidents among teens.

Although the pandemic was difficult for everyone, for teens it was an especially challenging time, Parks said.

“They were so isolated,” she said.

As a result, the library decided to focus on teen mental health initiatives and give them a place where they could come and build a community, Parks said.

Parks also introduced a peer-led support group facilitated by library social work interns called Teen Table Talk as well as special events such as Nerf Night and Murder Mystery Night.

Under her leadership, the Teen Library Council was launched to give teens “more investment in their space.”

“The more they feel like they have ownership over the library and what we do here, the more they feel invested and dedicated to using it and knowing it is here when they need it,” Parks said.

After college, Parks contemplated a career in publishing but began working at the Downers Grove library as a shelver.

“It was such a wonderful, welcoming place,” Parks said.

The library’s mission felt “so right,” leading Parks to shift gears and return to school for her master’s degree.

For a period, Parks worked as a teen librarian at the Northlake Library before returning to Downers Grove when a teen librarian position opened up.

“It felt like coming home,” she said.

Now she is dedicated to bringing to the Downers Grove Library things she would have valued when she was a teen.

In addition, Parks also wanted to “do this place justice because it is so wonderful and it has done so many wonderful things for patrons.”