A New Chapter at Florida Public Library

  The Board of Trustees of the Florida Public Library (FPL) announces the appointment of Meg Sgombick as Director to succeed Madelyn Folino who is retiring at the end of the month after 23 years leading the library. 

Sgombick, who has worked at FPL since 2009, has held a variety of positions from Library Clerk to Library Assistant (Children’s Services) to being in charge of purchasing, publicity and social media for the last five years. She is a longtime resident of Florida and is well-known for her many community activities, serving as PTA president, Girl Scout leader and unit coordinator for Florida. She also served five years on the local school board. She is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and with husband, John, is the parent of five children: three college graduates, one college student and one high school student. 

   Sgombick was the first co-recipient of the New York Library Association’s Enos Conference Scholarship, named in honor of Randall Enos, longtime Youth Services Coordinator for the Ramapo Catskill Library System. She is currently in NYLA’s 2021 Developing Leaders Program which is limited to 30 participants each year, selected from across New York State. NYLA provides almost 40 hours of training for leaders chosen for the competitive program. She also volunteers for NYLA’s Friends of Libraries section, serving as Marketing Coordinator. 

  Madelyn Folino was recruited to FPL in 1997 to provide regular children’s programming which she did for a year before being appointed Director. During her tenure, the library moved from an office trailer in which it was housed after a flood of its rented quarters on Bridge St., to its first permanent home at 4 Cohen Circle. She then became FPL’s first full-time Director. Florida has won five Program of the Year Awards from RCLS and numerous ALA, NEA and NEH grants under her leadership. She was honored with NYLA’s Moshier/Wynkoop Award for Distinguished Librarianship in 2003, followed by NYLA’s Intellectual Freedom Award for defense of the First Amendment in 2004. 

  Before coming to FPL, she was a professional storyteller and writer and initiated the founding of the library’s Black Dirt Storytelling Guild in 2001. She has been a frequent volunteer in local schools, telling stories to all ages to promote literacy, history and culture and has also spoken on intellectual freedom issues, including at her alma mater, Mount Saint Mary College. She met her husband, Ross, a Warwick native, in graduate school and they have lived in Pine Island for 40 years. 

  “Meg has been my right arm for the last five years and involved in every one of our many programs and services, so she is a natural to be Director” said Folino. “Our staff has always excelled at teamwork and customer service and Meg is already a trusted team leader. In my retirement, I expect to hear many great stories of continued success at FPL.” 

Folino looks forward to more of everything in retirement: more reading, more writing of book reviews, more gardening, more storytelling and more visits with her four children and seven grandchildren.