The Chestatee Regional Library System (CRLS) is a system of four

public libraries A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants. There are five fundamenta ...

serving the counties of Dawson County, and

Lumpkin County Lumpkin County is a county located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,488. Its county seat is Dahlonega. History This area was settled by the Cherokee, who also occupied a ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, United States. The name Chestatee is from the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

word meaning "place of the lights." This refers to the practice of hunting deer at night. CRLS is a member of

PINES A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

, a program of the

Georgia Public Library Service The Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS) is the state agency for libraries in the U.S. State of Georgia and a unit of the University System of Georgia. The service was initially founded in 1996 after the inception of the Library Services and Tec ...

that covers 53 library systems in 143 counties of Georgia. Any resident in a PINES supported library system has access to over 10.6 million books in the system's circulation. The library is also serviced by GALILEO, a program of the University System of Georgia which stands for "GeorgiA LIbrary LEarning Online". This program offers residents in supported libraries access to over 100 databases indexing thousands of periodicals and scholarly journals. It also boasts over 10,000 journal titles in full text.

History

The Chestatee Regional Library System was first founded in 1953 as a two-county regional library system serving the communities of Hall and Lumpkin Counties. In 1994, in an effort to mutually expand the resources of their libraries, Dawson County joined with Hall and Lumpkin to make the library system a tri-county consortium. However, shortly thereafter in 1997, Hall County withdrew from the system and began their own self-sufficient library system, the Hall County Library System made up of its own five branches.

Branches

Library systems in neighboring counties

* Mountain Regional Library System to the north *

Northeast Georgia Regional Library System The Northeast Georgia Regional Library System (NEGRLS) is a collection of seven public libraries in the counties of Habersham, White, Rabun, and Stephens, Georgia, United States. NEGRLS is a member of PINES, a program of the Georgia Public Libra ...

to the east * Hall County Library System to the south east * Forsyth County Public Library to the south * Sequoyah Regional Library System to the west

References

External links

PINES catalog
{{authority control County library systems in Georgia (U.S. state) Public libraries in Georgia (U.S. state)