Jan 8, 2026 By Garrett Neese 4 min read

When she enrolled at Penn West California as a nontraditional student, Justina Arena envisioned becoming a meteorologist.

The area she’d planned to make her whole career is now just a small part of it — specifically, 551.5 in the Dewey decimal system.

Arena began her new job as executive director of the Bowlby Library in Waynesburg at the start of the year following the retirement of longtime director Kathy McClure.

At PennWest, the Brownsville resident majored in meteorology and climate science. Her first move toward her future as a librarian came at a conference for the American Meteorological Society, where she learned about historical meteorology, the processes to maintain those records and how weather affected history.

The history and the archival work fascinated her, Arena realized. That realization had a flip side, she said: “What am I studying all this math for?”

Arena finished out her undergraduate degree, getting her diploma in 2023. But when it came time for graduate school, she opted for a degree in library science.

“I thought that was a decent bridge between history and meteorology, in a sense, because it does have a lot of elements that kind of can blend the two,” she said.

It also gave her the chance to stay at PennWest, which didn’t offer a master’s program for history.

Arena’s first plan still kept one foot in the world of weather. She hoped to become an archival meteorologist, working in an academic library with an atmospheric science department, where she would guide students, get to look at old books and help preserve maps.

While working at the California Public Library as she got her degree, Arena found another realization: she had a talent for working with people.

The new job puts Arena’s degree to use. It’s also a way for her to get to work in the kind of small, history-rich community she loves.

“I love small, local, rural communities because there’s so much depth in them that a lot of people don’t realize,” she said. “…I’m more at home working in a smaller community than I would (be in) an academic place, or even in a bigger city like Pittsburgh and the suburbs. All the pieces kind of lined up together and worked really well.”

Arena sees the library as a valuable third space that can be a refuge from work or home.

The children’s department is putting together plans for activities that can draw children away from screens and back to the library.

New programs for adults will be coming up, such as a silent book club where they’ll dim the lights in a room and people can sit and read.

Arena put together a survey asking residents what kind of programs they’d be interested in attending.

“Post-pandemic and with technology being as advanced as it is, sometimes we just get lost in our phones, and it’s hard to really see what’s going on around you, because we’re always staring at a four-inch device,” she said. “To be able to encourage people to come back to the spaces that they would have been very commonly in 20-30 years ago would be wonderful, and that’s what I’m working to do.”

She’s met with people wishing her well and giving her new ideas for how to serve the community.

Best yet, Arena’s already developing a set of regulars who will look for her and ask if she’s there.

“When I worked in California, there (were) always my regular patrons that loved whenever I was there and would come in and see me just to see me,” she said. “So to have that starting to carry on here is wonderful.”