“The interactions with people, the different questions, every day something new,” she said. “Then in my role as manager, seeing my staff, having those positive customer interactions. It's just really nice.” 

However, she said the Medina County District Library, like many libraries throughout the country, faced challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“When we shut down on that March Saturday, it was just unexpected,” she said. “So many folks... we just, for six weeks, we were not here at all. Then we opened behind closed doors.” 

She said 2021 was a year of rebuilding, as staff thought of ways to serve the public. She said curbside pickup and appointments for highly demanded passport services were just two of many implementations.  

“Last summer we started doing some drive up story times,” she said. “We use the back parking lot and kids and families would drive up, open up their hatchback and sit and watch us do a story time outdoors. Some people were feeling safer with that, and it was a lot of fun. We're actually still doing some of those things.” 

She said there was also a hiring freeze that has since reversed. She said 30% of the 180 staff members are new. 

In addition, she said she’s finding more people are taking to the library to use materials. 

“I think it's always in bad economic times people come to the library more,” she said. “I mean, we're still we're still not quite up to pre-pandemic levels of people in the building. Last month was the first month we saw in house circulation go up since the pandemic.” 

She said these days, things are looking up. 

“All of our services are back,” she said. “Anything that you could do before the pandemic and more...we're here to serve you time.” 

Gramm said the library’s collection size at the end of 2021 reached 478,423 items. She also said 90,634 items were added in that year, including e-media.