Mary “Squeak” Barnett, who worked at Mossey Library for 23 years, died in Hillsdale this month at age 76.

As the library technician tasked with overseeing circulation, Barnett was “the face of the library,” according to Public Services Librarian Brenna Wade ’08, who worked under Barnett as a student.

“She was the first person you encountered,” Wade said. “She was incredibly spunky. She was very dynamic.”

Before working at the library, Barnett owned a newsstand in Jonesville, Michigan, where she grew up. She began working for Mossey Library in 1987, and she always went by her nickname, “Squeak,” according to Maurine McCourry, the library director.

“It was a family thing, and she went by ‘Squeak’ from the time she was an infant,” McCourry said. “I remember people would come and say, ‘I need to talk to Mary.’ And everybody would kind of look at each other: ‘Mary? Oh, you mean Squeak.’ You never called her Mary.”

Barnett oversaw the library student workers, McCourry said.

“She always had them busy and taking care of things and was always willing to help people,” McCourry said. “She always greeted people when they came in the library — her desk was right there at the circulation desk — so she saw everybody come in.”

Technical Services Librarian Aaron Kilgore ’12 worked at Mossey Library as a student under Barnett.

“She was fun,” Kilgore said. “I always remember her smiling.”

Barnett loved working with the students, according to Wade.

“She was the person that you dealt with the most on a daily basis,” Wade said. “She’s the one who told you what to do on your shift. She was good at her job, and she was a good presence at the library, and really good with the student workers. She was just very friendly and engaging.”

She said some of her fondest memories came from the library’s team building exercise in the winter, which featured dinner and games for staff and students.

“Squeak always went all out for it,” Wade said. “I just remember her being very involved in the games, very good at the games.”

In addition to running circulation, Barnett helped the library grow its collection of popular novels, according to McCourry.

“She kept up on what people were interested in reading,” McCourry said. “She spent a lot of time talking with people about what they were reading for fun, and she kind of helped us out a lot with buying materials like that.”

Because the library did not have access to the Michigan eLibrary yet, McCourry said, Barnett helped Mossey grow its collection.

“I think the newspaper stand experience helped her with that,” McCourry said. “She knew how to feel people out about what they were interested in reading.”

Barnett was also the go-to source for navigating Hillsdale, according to Wade.

“I did student teaching, when we still had an accredited program, and I needed to get to Reading,” Wade said. “I’m like, ‘Squeak, how do I get to Reading?’ And she gave me this back roads way. And I basically just memorized it to figure out how to get back there. She was the contact for navigating the town.”

Beyond working at the library, Barnett also enjoyed bowling and snowmobiling with her husband, Larry, — but McCourry said she bonded with Barnett over their shared love of fishing.

“My husband and I would fish for bluegill on Middle Sand Lake, and Squeak and her husband would fish for bluegill on South Sand Lake,” McCourry said. “She would always tell us when the bluegill were there, and where she was catching them. She always had news about fishing for me.”

The two also bonded over both having one daughter, according to the library director.

“She had a little child-sized rocking chair at home, and she brought it because I would bring my daughter to work a lot in the afternoons, and she brought the little rocking chair so that Stella would have a place to sit when she was in my office,” McCourry said. “And we kept it there until Stella was too big for the chair.”

The library gave Barnett a brick when she retired in 2011, according to McCourry.

“Squeak embodied the mission of the college, the service aspect — that’s what she was here for, to serve the college and the students and the mission,” McCourry said. “She just lived that, and she did everything she could to help the students learn.”