The Southwest Georgia Regional Library (SWGRL) is a

public library A public library is a library, most often a lending 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 servic ...

system serving the counties of Decatur,

Miller A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalents ...

, and

Seminole The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, ...

, in the U.S. state of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. The central library is the Gilbert H. Gragg Library, located in

Bainbridge, Georgia Bainbridge is a city in Decatur County, Georgia, United States. The city is the county seat of Decatur County. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 14,468, up from 12,697 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the ...

. SWGRL 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. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as ...

, 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 Te ...

that covers 53 library systems in 143 counties of Georgia. Any resident in a PINES supported library system has access to the system's collection of 10.6 million books. The library is also serviced by

GALILEO Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

, 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

Seminole County Public Library

The first public library to open in Seminole County was the Donalsonville Public Library, which opened on May 11, 1928. Initially this library existed in an old millinery store before moving in 1929 to the city courthouse. In 1952 the Decatur-Seminole Regional Library was formed. By 1978 plans were made with the help of the Public Works Program to start raising money for a new library building. A "Buy a Brick" effort began, with bricks selling for $2.00 a piece. Land was donated by members of the community, and a new building was completed on May 1, 1988.

Decatur County Library

The oldest known library in Decatur County is the Jeffersonian Library and Literary Association, founded in the early 1880s in

. Newspapers from the era hinted at the difficulty of holding interest in a public library in the town, with one such article suggesting the end of the library by the end of June in 1882. By 1896 the idea of a public library was given new life, and on March 14 a large group of teachers and educators met at the courthouse to organize the Decatur County Library Association. Originally this library had several hundred volumes which were kept on shelves in a local business, and by 1940 a new library building was constructed as a joint enterprise between the County of Decatur and City of Bainbridge. At the dedication of this new library it was revealed the library was officially founded in 1902 despite the Decatur County Library Association's founding in 1896.

Branches

Library systems in neighboring counties

* De Soto Trail Regional Library System to the north *

Roddenbery Memorial Library The Roddenbery Memorial Library (RML) is a single-branch public library system serving the county of Grady County, Georgia, Grady, located in the U.S.state of Georgia (U.S. State), Georgia. The library is located in Cairo, Georgia. RML is a memb ...

to the east

References

External links

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