Alecs Mickunas named Fairfield library director

FAIRFIELD — Alecs Mickunas has been named the new director of the Fairfield Public Library effective July 1.

Library patrons will recognize Mickunas as the library’s current youth services librarian, a post he’s held for the past two years after former youth services librarian Afton Pedrick stepped down in the summer of 2020.

Fairfield Public Library Board President Kimberly Broz said that, in his two years with the library, Mickunas has shown his creativity, enthusiasm for innovative programs, and desire for the library to be a valuable place for all members of our community.

“Please stop by the library and meet Alecs if you haven’t already!” Broz said.

Mickunas received his master’s degree in Library and Information Science in 2020 from the University of Iowa. Before coming to Fairfield, he worked as an educator for three years in the Des Moines Public Schools.

Mickunas told The Union that he expected to move to a large city, like New York City, after getting his master’s degree. However, fate had other plans. Just a few months before his graduation, Mickunas met Eva Schmidt, a student at Maharishi International University in Fairfield. Mickunas visited Fairfield and came to love its parks, loop trail and ponds. When the position for youth services librarian opened in the summer of 2020, Mickunas jumped on the chance to move to town.

The first program he put on as youth services librarian was the “When the Lights Go Out” book character-themed party on Halloween that fall. Due to the pandemic, the event had to be held virtually. Mickunas said it was a big responsibility, not just because of the work involved in adapting the event to the internet, but also because he wanted to make then library executive director Rebecca Johnson proud. After all, she had started the event, so Mickunas felt like he was taking on “her baby.”

In the ensuing two years, Mickunas has experimented with many different kinds of programs to attract people to the library and get children interested in reading. He said the most rewarding part of the job is seeing kids learn to read.

“Sometimes parents will send me videos of their children reading,” he said. “The kids I see who are learning to read are having five to six books read to them each day. I also love seeing children become friends at the library. We have so much potential to help people develop bonds of friendship.”

Mickunas first developed an interest in librarianship when he studied Japanese language and literature at the University of Iowa as an undergraduate. His interest in Japan began early in life, in fourth grade when he learned about Des Moines having a sister city in Japan. He began studying Japanese at Central Campus in Des Moines in 1998, and two years later while still in high school he traveled to Des Moines’s sister city in Yamanashi Prefecture, just west of Tokyo.

Mickunas lived in Japan for two stints after high school, first as a study abroad student in 2006-2007 when he lived in Tokyo studying at Toyo University, and again from 2011-2014 when he return to the country to teach English at a rural school. While there, he developed a friendship with the teacher librarian at the high school, who got him thinking more about library studies.

One of Mickunas’s goals as incoming library director is to expand the library’s foreign language section, and not just in Spanish but in other languages, too.

“We have a lot of Arabic speakers who come to the library,” he said. “I know there are a lot of Arabic speaking people at MIU. Of the people who regularly attend our library programs, I’d say about one-quarter of them are Arabic-speaking.”

Mickunas will be transitioning into his new role in the middle of the library’s summer reading program, which was kicked off on June 4 and will end on July 30. The library will be abuzz with activities all summer, with a couple of days full of family events on June 24 and July 8. Not only that, but it will host craft activities for kids every Monday, and free movies every Friday.

As if planning a summer’s worth of activities were not keeping him busy enough, Mickunas is also getting married to Schmidt in July, as she graduates from MIU with a major in Ayurveda and Integrative Health. Mickunas said the two of them have decided it is time to put down roots in Fairfield.

“We want to make Fairfield our home,” Mickunas said. “I’ve earned the trust of the library board, and I’m ready to give my all to Fairfield as its library director.”

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com