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Sussex County's new director of libraries gets to work

Sussex County
Rachel Lynch

Sussex County has named a new director of libraries, and is staying in house for its new library department head.

 

The county's assistant library director Rachel Lynch replaces Kathy Graybeal, who served as director for 10 years before recently retiring.

Lynch says when she first learned she was promoted she thought, “I have some big shoes to fill.”

Moving forward, she plans to work on stronger partnerships.

 

“I’m sure most people are aware of the Bookmobile partnership with Sussex County EMS and Beebe Hospital. We have been able to provide over 800 (COVID) vaccines to people in hard-to-reach areas. I look forward to continuing that," said Lynch. "I would like to build stronger partnerships with other organizations in the County as well.”

Lynch says her goal is to make libraries the first place a community looks for outreach assistance.

 

But she notes that that requires additional funding.

 

“We provide so many services free of charge. We do a lot, but we could do a lot more if we had additional funding. So get out there and support your libraries," Lynch said. "We’ve also been working - searching everywhere we can and that is a priority (funding). As many of the businesses and things in the area were hit during COVID, we (the libraries) were also hit. You know we haven’t collected fines since March of 2020.”

 

Lynch says collecting fines again is being considered by library staff.

 

As director, she oversees a 50-member staff, the general administration of three County-owned libraries in Milton, Greenwood and the South Coastal Library in Bethany Beach in Sussex and the County’s mobile library, all while working closely with the other 11 independent libraries.

 

Kelli Steele has over 30 years of experience covering news in Delaware, Baltimore, Winchester, Virginia, Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California.