Marteena was president of the North Carolina Negro Library Association (NCNLA) from 1952 through 1954, and helped guide its merger with the North Carolina Library Association, which ended the segregation of professional library associations in North Carolina.[2][5]
Through NCNLA, she published the printed resource Achievements of Afro-American women of the twentieth century: a checklist in 1949.[6] This built on her previous publication, A bibliographic technique illustrated in the compilation of a selective guide to the literature of Afro-American women of achievement, which was published in 1946.[7] She also authored the book The Lengthening Shadow of a Woman: A Biography of Charlotte Hawkins Brown about the woman who founded the Palmer Memorial Institute.[8] Marteena was an advocate for women's education stating, "when you educate a woman you educate a family."[9]
Marteena worked at Bennett College from 1937 until 1967, retiring as director of the Thomas F. Holgate Library in Greensboro, North Carolina.[2] She was an instructor in the college's teacher-librarian certification program and worked on a library collection on African-American women.[2] The special collections room was named in her honor in 1978.[10]
Marteena died on December 29, 1978, in Greensboro.[2]
