Fairfield library announces new children’s librarian

FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Public Library has a new children’s librarian.

Sara Martindale started her new role at the library in late October. Librarian patrols will see her hard at work in the children’s section of the library, and hosting storytime three days a week in the library’s meeting room.

Fairfield Public Library Director Al Schmidt Mickunas said the library and the people of Fairfield are going to enjoy getting to know Martindale and all she has to share with the community.

“Before coming to Fairfield, she spent nearly a decade as a weekly storytime volunteer at the Ottumwa Public Library and comes to us highly recommended by their library’s staff,” Mickunas said. “All of us here at FPL are excited to see what exciting new programs and services Sara is going to create for our community’s children and families.”

Mickunas was previously the youth services librarian until earlier this year when he was promoted to library director.

Martindale grew up in the eastern Iowa town of Durant, near Davenport. Her mother and both her grandmothers took her to the library often as a little girl, and she became an avid reader.

“I dug my teeth into a wide variety of books. I picked up just about anything,” she said. “I had a hard time stopping a book once I started, and I got in trouble for reading under the covers at night.”

Martindale’s interest in working at a library didn’t surface until well after college. She attended Iowa State University, where she studied anthropology and art design. She had a few corporate jobs, working for Wells Fargo and UPS, and spent her free time at the library. At UPS, she prepared the plans for the company’s drivers, and this meant working a nightshift from 2 a.m. until about 8 or 9 a.m., which gave her time during the day to volunteer at the Ottumwa Public Library.

“I had a 2-year-old daughter at the time, and our local storytime was geared more toward older kids,” Martindale said. “I knew my 2-year-old was not going to sit still, so I asked the library director if I could do one for younger kids, where we’d have fun and they wouldn’t have to stay sitting the whole time.”

Martindale said that volunteering at the library was a great way to make friends and to meet people who were new to Ottumwa.

“A lot of people come and go, so the moms who were new to town liked storytime with little kids. It was a benefit to both the moms and the kids,” Martindale said.

Before joining the Fairfield library, Martindale worked a short stint as 4-H Youth Coordinator for Mahaska County ISU Extension.

“That gave me some good hands-on experience working with youth,” Martindale said. “Something I learned while doing the 4-H job was that my heart was really at the library.”

Martindale said these first two weeks on the job in Fairfield have gone well, and she can tell residents here are very engaged in their library. She said she’s glad to be able to offer storytime for different ages of kids, such as “Song and Stories with Sara,” a storytime event for children in infancy through age 3 held every Tuesday from 10:15-10:45 a.m. For older children, “Preschool Storytime” will meet every Wednesday and Thursday from 3:45-4:30 p.m. and will include simple crafts and art projects for children ages 2-5 years old.

Martindale said that, as she settles into the position, she might try to replicate some of the successful programs she saw at the Ottumwa library, such as an event for older kids who are into chapter books called “Snacks in the Stacks,” which combines snacks and reading a chapter from a book.

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