After more than three decades as the children’s services coordinator at the Murrysville Community Library, Carol Siefken still has just as much passion as the day she started in 1987.
You can hear the excitement in her voice as she rifles through drawers stuffed to the brim with supplemental materials such as cardboard teddy bears, magnets that are used as storytelling visual aids and more hats than can be counted.
You can hear the quiver in her voice as she fights back tears while talking about her pending retirement, which will be effective Oct. 28.
“They gave me a shoebox and they said, ‘Mrs. Siefken, here’s children’s services,’ ” she said. “I’d come from two former library jobs in Chicago, and I thought, ‘Well, this is an exciting challenge!’ ”
After earning a master’s degree from Syracuse University in New York as a certified media specialist, Siefken taught for six years in the greater Syracuse area before stints with the Indian Trails Library and Palantine Public Library in the Chicago area.
And her attention has always been focused on the kids’ attention.
“I had to make sure that what I was doing was a little bit one-room schoolhouse and a little bit of dynamic enthusiasm,” she said. “They had to like me, and it had to be fun.”
Janeene Foster is a volunteer coordinator with the Murrysville Community Library today, but 30 years ago, she was one of the children in Siefken’s summer reading program.
“Carol was one of the top three people that fostered my love of reading,” Foster said. “I probably wouldn’t be working at the library if it wasn’t for her.”
Former library director Jamie Falo already knew about Siefken’s work before coming to the library in 2011.
“I reached out to Carol on several occasions for advice in children’s programming and community outreach ideas,” said Falo. “She’s very creative, talented and devoted to early literacy.”
Falo’s fondest memories are of Siefken’s Summer Reading Program, which in the past has been named best in the state and reaches nearly 1,000 children each year. “I always remember her dressing in costume, taking on whatever role she was portraying,” Falo said.
Falo’s favorite was “Librarian Lady Goodheart Siefken.”
“Carol dressed in that costume during February for ‘Library Lovers Month,’ ” she said. “She even attended a county commissioners meeting one years dressed as ‘Lady Goodheart’ to promote library services.”
Siefken has donned an astronaut costume to promote the Summer Reading Club at Murrysville council meetings and introduced two of the library’s most successful programs, Dog Reading Pals and the library’s annual Jingles’n’Gingerbread celebration near the Christmas holiday.
Siefken said she lives to create “quiet moments of expectation” among the children she works with.
“It’s where the children start to see the story, their imaginations start to swirl,” Siefken said. “I knew I was doing it right when I would finish, and the kids are frozen statues. They’ve become so wrapped up in the story, they aren’t even moving anymore.”
Falo said the community surely will miss Siefken and her enthusiasm for reading.
“She makes each child’s visit to the library a special occasion,” Falo said.
