Murrysville Community Library marks 100th anniversary
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Nowadays, patrons of Murrysville Community Library can reserve an e-book from the comfort of their own homes, or attend a presentation from an astronaut at NASA by way of the library’s Tech Nook.
It’s a long way from the mid-1980s, when former librarian Denise Sticha would return from the grocery store to find library books dropped off in her parked car.
“People recognized my car, and they’d drop off books that needed returned,” Sticha said with a laugh. “I’d also occasionally find a pie in there.”
In 1922, Dr. Orbin Hall offered the Murrysville Woman’s Club the use of a small building beside his grocery store for a library.
By 1925, the library contained 1,200 books and was running on an annual budget of $60. The Murrysville Woman’s Club continued to fund and staff the library through 1970.
Earlier this year, Murrysville Community Library marked its 100th anniversary, and these days the budget is a bit more than $60.
Today, the library is firmly rooted in the 21st century, located in the Murrysville municipal building. But it nearly ended up as part of the Franklin Regional school complex, according to Sticha, who worked two stints as Murrysville library director and today is executive director for the Centre County Library & Historical Museum in Bellefonte.
“When I came there in 1981, there were plans to build a new library on school property near Newlonsburg Elementary School,” she said. “Those plans fell through, and then the woman’s club and the people who owned the land where their clubhouse was offered to turn it over for the library to use.”
With the help of a federal grant, the task of remodeling the library began.
“The school district lent us a bookmobile so that we could still operate while the library was closed,” Sticha said. “I have some fun memories of that time.”
In December 1984, the library opened in what is today the Murrysville Community Center on Carson Avenue.
“It was beautiful,” Sticha said, adding that her best memories are of co-workers.
“We had such a good team of people, probably more than 50 volunteers, and I think we really established a place for the library in the community.”
One of those people was Carol Siefken, who came on board in 1987 and worked for more than three decades as the library’s children’s services coordinator.
“In the early days, the library was not technology-heavy. We were writing on IBM Selectric typewriters, and when story time registration would open, we’d have a line all the way out the door,” said Siefken, who retired in 2020 and lives in her home state of Indiana. “Technology has changed that, but we started our outreach program early on, as well as our partnership with the Franklin Regional School District.”
Siefken said that relationship was a crucial part of moving the library’s educational mission forward.
“I’m very proud of that,” she said. “I think it provided a springboard for wonderful opportunities to enhance the library.”
Sticha left the library in 1987 but returned in the 2000s, as the library was coming into the digital age and Westmoreland libraries began creating a countywide card system and sharing resources.
“That was a huge project, and we got funding from the R.K. Mellon Foundation to do it in the late 2000s,” Sticha said.
Bringing the library online and keeping up with technology is a trend that continues today with library director Amy Riegner, who took over in January 2020.
“I have a STEM background, and this library was well known for its STEM initiatives,” Riegner said.
During the pandemic, the library quickly pivoted to make more books available in a digital format, and Riegner said that while their e-book usage is down from the height of the pandemic, it is still significantly more popular than it used to be.
“We’re doing virtual programming with the Tech Nook we put in, our summer reading club uses an app called Beanstack to log their reading, and we want to continue to be an educational beacon in the community,” she said.
Riegner said the focus isn’t strictly on educating younger people, either.
“We want to keep people on a path of ‘lifelong learning,’ ” she said. “This library is known for its children’s programming — that’s part of Carol Siefken’s legacy — but we also want it to offer programs to teens, adults and families.”
Siefken said connecting with the community was “the essence of why I loved my job so much.”
“I was able to see children grow from infants through childhood, to teens, to coming back to the library with their own children,” she said. “The circle of life I experienced in my job was a fulfillment that most people don’t realize in their careers. I’ve been blessed with those memories, which I really cherish.”