When is a library not just a library?

“We are a library. We offer library services. But we’re more of a community center,” Amy Runkle says of the Winifred Knox Memorial Library in Franklin Grove.

The new library named after Knox, a local resident and philanthropist who donated funds to build the library, opened in 2007. Today, the library offers not only a wide selection of books but also a cornucopia of events and activities.

One of those events is Dolly’s Book Bash, a free community event from 2 to 3 p.m. Monday, June 22. The event, an outreach of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, will feature snacks, crafts, story time and information on how families can receive books through Dolly’s Imagination Library.

The Winifred Knox Memorial Library is one of four libraries in Lee County offering the Book Bash event.

“A representative from United Way of Lee County contacted me and asked if we would host one of the events. They are trying to get the word out about Dolly’s Imagination Library,” Runkle said.

The library also just launched its summer reading program. This year’s program is called “Plant A Seed, read!”

The reading program started June 10 and continues until July 15 for readers from pre-kindergarten through seventh grade. The summer reading program is Wednesdays from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

“We are going to have people who do gardening and farming talk to us. We are going to have a magician one day. We have a microgreen station so we are going to teach the kids how to plant microgreens and they will harvest the microgreens throughout the summer reading program,” Runkle said.

In addition to that, the library also offers a sewing class, a cooking club and a spice class.

All of it, Runkle said, is designed to serve as many members of the community as possible and to bring the community together.

“We love doing stuff like that,” Runkle said.

Runkle’s goal to bring the community together through and in its new library started at the front desk.

“I applied in 2009 for a desk position,” she said.

She had been bringing her children to the old and then the new library since she, her husband and children moved to Franklin Grove from the Yorkville area.

“We moved out here and I started bringing my kids to the library, which was the old library at that time,” she said.

After getting the front desk job, Runkle got to know members of the community who would stop in for a book or a chat or with a question.

“It was just talking about different needs and hearing from kids and parents that there’s not really much to do within the town,” she said.

She was hired as the library director in 2022 and was faced with the challenge of getting people back to the library after the COVID shutdowns and isolation.

“I wanted to find a way to bring people back in through the doors. I wanted to bring it back to life,” she said.

She talked to other library directors and looked at the programming that other libraries were doing and offering.

“It was slowly building programs based on what people were telling me they wanted. We did community surveys before to ask what they wanted, what can we do to improve, what are some programs you would like to see. So we were really reaching out to the community and going from there and planning,” Runkle said.

The response from the community has been positive.

“I have heard a lot of good, positive comments about how much we do for our tiny library. To me, I think it is an amazing response. I always strive to do more and better but I think we have had a really good response from all the programs we offer,” she said.

The programming crosses age boundaries. The library offers chair yoga, which is popular with older residents, and once a month there’s a game night, which features board games. Game night has turned out to be popular with teens and pre-teens.

“I originally planned that as a family event, where parents would come with their kids and play board games, but we get a lot of teenagers and pre-teens attending that,” she said.

From making the connections within the community, Runkle said she has discovered a network of talent and skills that residents want to pass along to others through classes at the library.

“Some of the programs we have are volunteer based. We love our volunteers, they are amazing. It’s not just the library staff coming up with ideas for programming, we have some awesome volunteers too,” she said.

When it comes to the services offered by a traditional public library, the 7,800-square-foot library steps neatly into that role, too. The Winifred Knox Memorial Library has a collection of around 20,000 items.

“We have large-print editions, we have audiobooks and then the typical fiction and non-fiction books,” she said.

For history buffs, there is a room of historical records and volumes, including a scanner to scan historical documents. For those who want to do their research online, the library offers nine public computers. A large meeting room, where much of the programming takes place, also is available for rent for private events.

The library also offers a “Library of Things.”

“It’s not your typical library things to check out,” she said.

Instead, the “Library of Things” includes items that patrons might need or use once but don’t want to purchase and don’t have access to otherwise.

“We have a giant Jenga set that you would put up in the yard. We have an auto code reader. We have a ukulele. We have gardening kits, sewing kits. It’s just things that maybe people need once but they don’t want to spend the money on,” she said.

The library is supported through an endowment created by the estate of Winifred Knox.

“We are blessed because Winifred Knox left money in her will for the library to be built but we also get an endowment from her will every year and that is what we base our budget on,” she said. The library has a staff of five, including Runkle.

While funding isn’t an issue for the library, for Runkle, finding enough time for all the jobs she does is her biggest challenge.

“I wear many hats. I am the director, I work at the front desk. I do the accounting. I do the website and social media. There are so many jobs and so many hats I have to wear for my position,” she said.