The Peach Public Libraries is a consortium of two

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 fundament ...

in central

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 t ...

, serving

Peach County Peach County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 27,695. Its county seat is Fort Valley. Founded in 1924, it is the state's newest county, taken from Houston and ...

. Its headquarters is the Thomas Public Library in Fort Valley. PPL 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 a ...

, 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 T ...

covering 53 library systems in 143 counties; all residents in PINES-supported library systems have access to its combined collection of approximately 10.6 million books. PPL is serviced by GALILEO (GeorgiA LIbrary LEarning Online), a program of the University System of Georgia that offers access to over 100 databases indexing thousands of periodicals and scholarly journals. It also maintains over 10,000 journal titles in full text.

History

The first library in Peach County opened in 1878 in Fort Valley, and "housed 2500 volumes of choice and well-selected reading matter. Eight first-class daily papers, numerous weeklies and several standard magazines." While impressive for its time, no other information about this initial library exists today. The central branch today, the Thomas Public Library, was founded on September 15, 1915 at a members' meeting called by the president of the History Club. By the end of the meeting the Fort Valley Library Association was formed from a donation by Dr. and Mrs. E. G. Thomas, who at the time were lending their 500-volume collection to local friends and patients. The Library Association sought to rent the Evans building in town to store the books, and by September 23 had moved to it. The library was initially funded by monthly $1 donations by 17 local citizens, and by a $25 monthly donation from the local Presbyterian church. By 1920, the library was growing at a faster pace than the Association could manage. To lighten the load, a board of trustees was created in the mid-1920s and a Library Auxiliary formed by women library members. By the mid-1930s, when the collection had grown to over 7,000 volumes, the library moved to the recently constructed courthouse to obtain adequate space. In 1936, with help from the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, in ...

(WPA), the town of

Byron, Georgia Byron is a city located primarily in Peach County, Georgia, United States. A small portion of the city also extends into parts of Houston and Crawford counties. The population was estimated to be 5,149 in 2019 by the Census Bureau, an increa ...

opened its own branch under the supervision of the Thomas Public Library. When the WPA ended, the Byron library joined the Thomas Public Library to create the first iteration of the Peach Public Library system. A third library on South Macon joined in 1961, but it was severely damaged by fire in 1969. To fund its replacement, the townspeople raised $37,000; the county governance provided $80,000; the city government provided $35,000; and Governor Lester Maddox donated $25,000 and a site for the new building. On April, 16, 1972 the new Thomas Library was formally dedicated by the county. Today it serves a population of over 27,000 people in Peach County.

Branches

The library system has two branches: * The Thomas Public Library, 315 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Fort Valley (central branch) * The Byron Public Library, 105 Church Street, Byron

Libraries in neighboring counties

Middle Georgia Regional Library System The Middle Georgia Regional Library System is a library system which serves the counties of Bibb, Crawford, Jones, Macon, Twiggs and Wilkinson in the U.S. state of Georgia. Patrons receive a PINES library card. This may be used at any of the 2 ...

to the north *

Houston County Public Library System The Houston County Public Library is a single county public library system that serves the county of Houston, Georgia, United States. The headquarters of the library is the Perry Branch, located in Perry. The system was formed in 1974. The librar ...

to the east *

Pine Mountain Regional Library System The Pine Mountain Regional Library System is a group of seven public library, public libraries that serve Meriwether County, Georgia, Meriwether, Upson County, Georgia, Upson, Talbot County, Georgia, Talbot, and Taylor County, Georgia, Taylor coun ...

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)