User:Kingdom(Hearts)Come/sandbox/ARLS

The Athens Regional Library System (ARLS) is a consortium of 11 public libraries across all four counties of the Athens – Clarke County metropolitan area (Clarke, Madison, Oconee, and Oglethorpe) as well as Franklin County.

The ARLS is a member of the Public Information Network for Electronic Services (PINES), a statewide public library system that includes in Georgia. Any member of the ARLS has a PINES library card which grants them access to over 8 million books in the PINES circulation. The library is also a member of the Georgia Library Learning Online (GALILEO), a resource with over 100 databases for active members to view thousands of journals and scholarly articles.

History
The first library to be built that is now part of the system is the Lavonia-Carnegie Library in Lavonia, built in 1911 with funding from Andrew Carnegie.

Regional library formation
With the advent of the Works Progress Administration the county Board of Trustees and Athens Woman's Club began organizing a regional library. The headquarters were in Athens, and thus the original name was the Athens Regional Library. This was the first regional library in the state. Clarke County, Oconee County, and Oglethorpe County were all involved in this system. A bookmobile donated by the WPA was used to service the region. Book loans were offered to residents of the county at the rate of two books allowed checked out per week, one being fiction and the other being non-fiction.

In 1955 a man by the name of Evangelos Terzapoulos from Athens, Greece donated a Grecian urn estimated to be 2,600 years old as a token of friendship.

The final two counties to join the system were Madison County in 1953, and Franklin County in 1974. During the 1970s the library began to show signs of age and overcrowding was becoming an issue. A campaign was set up to raise money for a new building. This new building, located on Research Road, was dedicated in May 1976. This library was expanded again in 1987. Another expansion came in 1991 when the Bogart Library showed similar signs of overcrowding. Soon after, in 1977 the Carnegie library in Lavonia underwent complete renovations as well.

In 2011 the main branch in Athens-Clarke County received money to renovate their current library, adding 20,000 square feet to the already expansive 63,000 square foot building.

Oconee
The earliest records for a library in the region are dated to March 11, 1810 where an active Library Society was founded by a citizen named Sterling Elder. Not much else is known of this library system save for references of the society meetings in the newspaper at the time, the Athens Gazette.

A second library began in 1915 when two citizens of the county, Mary Overby and L. Campbell, donated their collection of books to the public starting the Mary Overby Library. The library at this time was located on the second floor of the Ashford Building on Main Street. The Mary Overby Library ran until 1926 when it donated its entire collection to the Oconee High School Library.

The next library formed as Oconee County joined ARLS upon its creation in 1940, with its location in Booth's drug store and Carrie Hussey as head librarian. In 1972, the library moved to a room near the courthouse. On June 6, 1974, county commissioners began the project for a new permanent library. They appointed Pattie Ivy as Library Board Chairman. The county also donated land for the library while the state offered to fund half the project. Efforts to raise $60,000 for the rest of the project, started by a library committee of up to 75 members, included fundraisers as well as donations from benefactors including Kiwanis Club member and county attorney Robert Nicholson with $1000, and a grant of $5000 from the emergency funds of Jimmy Carter and George Busbee. The committee also created the annual Fall Festival with the purpose of raising money for the library. Once the committee raised $60,000, the project was fully funded and the library was constructed in 1976. Additions for the building took place in 1987 and again in 1997.

Winterville
The Winterville branch library is located in a cottage that was formerly used as a farm labor residence before abandonment. In 1974, the building was donated to the city of Winterville, restored, and dedicated as a library. Renovations were completed in the 1990s.

Library systems in neighboring counties

 * Northeast Georgia Regional Library System to the north.
 * Azalea Regional Library System to the south.
 * Piedmont Regional Library System to the west.
 * Bartram Trail Regional Library System to the east.
 * Hart County Library to the east.
 * Elbert County Public Library to the east.