Marilyn Sparks was born on April 27, 1930 in Seattle, Washington. She attended Eatonville High School where she worked in the school’s library. Sparks then went to Whitman College where she graduated with a B.A. in English Literature in 1952. During her time as a student at Whitman, Sparks acted as a student assistant in the Penrose Library. In her career of nearly fifty years at the Penrose Library she acted as a Periodicals and Documents Librarian with the majority of her time as Assistant Librarian.

After graduating from Whitman, Sparks joined the United States Navy in 1955 and was honorably discharged in 1959. She later received an M.A. in Information Science from the University of Washington in 1964. Marilyn was married to George Sparks on April 1, 1956. They lived in Richland, Washington where Sparks worked as the Reference Librarian at the Richland Public Library until George died in 1971.

Following her husband’s death, Sparks returned to Walla Walla and to working at the Penrose Library. In 1997 she was awarded the title of Assistant Librarian Emeritus. She was a member of the American Librarian Association, the Pacific Northwest Library Association, the Washington Library Association, the American Printing History Association, the Washington Advisory Council on Libraries Task Force on Library Service, and the Advisory Council for the Career Assessment Centers for Librarians Project. Sparks died on October 1, 2001.