United States, Georgia, Clarke County, Athens, 33.96095, -83.377941992Photograph of the interior of the new Athens-Clarke County Library. The new building was constructed because the old Athens Regional Library building was no longer able to best serve Athens' growing population and its literary, research, and technological needs. A bigger library building was needed to cut down on overcrowding and parking problems at the old building. The new building plan was approved in a referendum by Athens voters in November 1987 after a campaign by library staff, volunteers, patrons, and the Friends of the Library group. Funds were allocated and the new library building began construction in October of 1987 with a budget of around $6 million. The Athens city and Clarke County governments merged in 1990, so in 1992 the completed new building on Baxter Street opened as the Athens-Clarke County Library, the primary branch of the Athens Regional Library system.image/jpegenghttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Athens Regional LibraryPublic libraries--Georgia--AthensPhotograph of the interior of the new Athens-Clarke County Library, Athens, Georgia, 1992StillImage