Georgia Public Library Service news, Vol. 9, no. 3 (Nov. 2011 )

A newsletter for friends and employees of Georgia's public libraries

volume 9, issue 3 I December 2011

Roni Tewksbury

Partnership programs
save state $4 million
Partnership programs are paying off for Georgia's public
libraries. During the past several years, they have educated and entertained thousands of Georgia citizens while saving millions of dollars in direct expenditures and providing hundreds of hours of free library programming.

GPLS's partnership with Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites, a division of the Department of Natural Resources, began in June 2008. With the introduction of the ParkPass program, library users are able to check out passes good for free parking and admissions. "These 21,270 circulations make ParkPass the gold standard among our partnership programs," said State Librarian Dr. Lamar Veatch. Between the program's first and second years, ParkPass circulations grew by 28 percent. In the third year, they increased by nearly 65 percent.

Mother Nature, as played by Douglas County Children's Librarian Sheila Kypta, served as mistress of ceremonies for the grand opening festivities for the Dog River branch library.
Douglas County welcomes new Dog River branch
Nearly 1,400 citizens turned out for the grand opening
events at the West Georgia Regional Library System's Dog River branch in Douglasville Nov. 5 and 6.
The 15,800-square-foot facility is the five-county system's 17th branch, and it is the first new library to be built in Douglas County in more than 25 years. It was constructed and furnished at a cost of $4.12 million, of which $2 million came from an appropriation by the Georgia General Assembly. The remaining $2.12 million was provided by the Douglas County Board of Commissioners.

The Zoo Atlanta Family Pass program began in February of this year and has attracted nearly 11,000 circulations, saving Georgia families hundreds of thousands of dollars and providing many children with
See Partnerships, page 2
GPLS set to organize, catalog library at Governor's Mansion
Georgia Public Library Service is in the planning stages of
organizing and creating an online catalog for the library at the Governor's Mansion in Atlanta.
The goals of the project are to allow the governor, first lady and mansion staff to access materials more easily and to create an accurate inventory of titles in the collection. The resulting online catalog will allow Georgians to discover what titles are held in trust for them at the mansion.

Dog River's grand opening weekend featured multiple family-friendly events, including a ribbon-cutting
See Dog River, page 3

"Beginning from at least 1860, approximately 2,700
books have been donated to the governors and citizens See Mansion, page 3

Partnerships

Continued from page 1 opportunities they would not previously have enjoyed to visit the zoo and take part in its many educational programs and events.
In partnership with the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority, Georgia's libraries have been able to offer the Kill-a-Watt Loan Program for the past two years. So far, this has saved residents approximately $35,900 over the purchase price of the meters and thousands of dollars off their electric bills.
GPLS's longest-running partnership is the Check-It-Out Reading Challenge, co-sponsored by GPLS, Atlanta Spirit, the Atlanta Hawks and, until their relocation to Canada earlier this year, the Atlanta Thrashers. These supplemental Summer Reading programs began in June 2005 and have attracted about 60,000 participants so far.
GPLS began a second supplemental summer reading program in May 2010 through a partnership with Georgia's Path2College 529 Plan. In its first two years, parents have signed up more than 11,000 youngsters for the annual summer reading sweepstakes. Georgia parents have contributed more than $1 billion to savings accounts for their children's college education through the plan. "And the public library partnership is most certainly helping to add to this growing number," added Veatch.
GPLS also partners with several entities that provide free programming, free materials or both for libraries. These include the Georgia Council for the Arts, the Georgia Center for the Book, the High Museum of Art, Zoo Atlanta and its Zoomobile, and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust (GCH).

The GCH partnership began in late September, with programs featuring Dr. Eugen Schoenfeld, Holocaust survivor and education director of the commission. "We had a capacity crowd -- standing room only -- to hear him speak in Vidalia," said Dusty Gres, director of the Ohoopee Regional Library System.
September also saw the kickoff of GPLS's relationship with VSA Arts of Georgia -- its first partnership aimed specifically to benefit the Georgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services network of Talking Book Libraries. Thanks to VSA, two walls at the Atlanta Metro Library for Accessible Services serve as a gallery, exhibiting the works of artists with visual impairments.
David Baker, director of Communications & Strategic Partnerships for GPLS, estimates that partnership programs have so far saved citizens approximately $3,756,500 in direct expenditures during the programs' respective life spans. "When you add in the costs that would otherwise have been associated with providing the free library programming that our partners have sponsored, that total would top $4 million," he said.
Baker pointed out that partnerships are not a one-way street. Most of the organizations that partner with public libraries get a significant boost in awareness through their relationships with the state's 405 public libraries, which promote the joint ventures through handouts and promotional items such as bookmarks. Libraries also build awareness of the programs with bulletin board posters, in newsletters and on library Websites.
Partnerships also enable public libraries to host partner-related

events and programs, such as visits from authors, experts or, in the case of the sports teams, players and mascots. Collaborative promotional posters and bookmarks also gain national exposure each September when GPLS hosts a table in the Pavilion of States at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
The popularity and demand for partnerships in Georgia are high and continue to grow as word about them spreads. DNR, in fact, expanded the ParkPass program this year, doubling the number of passes at each library branch to help keep up with requests.
"We have gotten great feedback from park visitors and a significant amount of online and press coverage for the library loan program," said Sally Winchester, marketing and customer relations manager for Georgia State Parks & Historic Sites. "More people are finding out about the program and about the fun, relaxing and healthy things they can do close to home.
"We are also grateful for the libraries' assistance in helping promote our most recent Tons of Fun Fitness Challenge initiative. This is a wonderful partnership for us!"
Library agencies as well as professional sports teams in other states have taken notice of Georgia libraries partnerships and have begun or are looking into similar programs.
"While `win-win' has become an extremely overused phrase, it does so clearly define all of our collaborative partnerships," Veatch concluded. "The public libraries of Georgia are helping to bring many amazing offerings and benefits to every corner of our state." I

2
Georgia Public Library Service News December 2011

Dog River
Continued from page 1 ceremony attended by about 400 people, live and silent auctions benefiting the Friends of the Library, book signings by several area authors and a variety of children's programs.
According to Library Director James P. Cooper, Dog River is known as "the library in the woods," because it is located on a 900-acre parcel of forested land that is owned by Douglas County.
"It is a green library," he said, "with a lot of attention paid to the environment. The building site was carefully carved out of the woods, and construction efforts were designed to protect as many of the surrounding trees as possible.
"The library features a screenedin porch for reading," Cooper said. "Everywhere you look, the focus is on access to nature and natural lighting. When you look out any window, what you see is the woods."
Community support for the library has been outstanding. "This is the only library in the southern part of the county, and the entire community has been very helpful," he said. "Hundreds of residents donated about 15,000 new and used books to the library, more than 5,000 of which will be included in its circulating collection."
Eventually, Dog River will offer more than 50,000 books, audiobooks, DVDs and other materials for loan.
Lindy Moore, who was recently named to oversee all three Douglas County library branches following the retirement of Charlotte Hurt, will serve as the Dog River branch librarian. I

NEWS IN BRIEF

The Clayton County Library System held a groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 20 for a new, 16,000-square-foot library in Forest Park. The branch is scheduled to open to the public in late 2012.
Ashley Moore has been appointed director of the Dougherty County Public Library in Albany. She was previously the system's assistant director and has served as its interim director since April.
Lyn Hopper has been appointed interim director of the

LaGrange-based Troup-Harris

Regional Library. She replaces

JoEllen Ostendorf, who retired on

Oct. 31 following 15 years with the

system.

Diana Very,

director of LSTA,

Statistics and

Research for

GPLS, has been

elected first vice

president/

president-elect of

the Georgia

Library

Very

Association. I

Mansion

Continued from page 1 of Georgia, and they are housed throughout the mansion," explained State Librarian Dr. Lamar Veatch. "Most titles in the collection are either by Georgia authors or are about the state of Georgia or her peoples. They provide a valuable cross section of Georgia history, geography, science and literature."
Among the collection's highlights are a signed first edition of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, an 1860 Gazetteer of Georgia by Adiel Sherwood that is dedicated to Gov. Joseph E. Brown, and a 1797 edition of The Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia by James Edward Smith and John Abbot.
Veatch and several other GPLS staff members met with Joy Forth, manager of the Governor's Mansion, on Nov. 3 for an overview of the collection and initial talks to develop a project proposal. Current plans are to secure private funding to create the catalog using the Evergreen library management system.

"Often, the authors or donators of books would autograph them upon presentation to the mansion," explained Peggy Chambliss, library services manager for GPLS. "These signatures and dedications, many of them dated, are some of the most interesting and historic aspects of the collection."

To preserve

and make

available this

information, the

collection's bibliographic

Chambliss

records will contain notes identifying

donors, signatures and the exact

wording of any dedication.

"We hope to obtain funding in the future to add links to relevant articles within the Digital Library of Georgia and to create digital images of the signatures in the books," Veatch noted. "Physical access to the collection will be limited, so having digital images of the signatures will be of great service to scholars and all interested Georgians." I

3
December 2011 Georgia Public Library Service News

Lee Moon

CONTACT US

Georgia Public Library Service 1800 Century Place, Suite 150 Atlanta, GA 30345-4304 404.235.7200 404.235.7201 fax www.georgialibraries.org

Lamar Veatch, state librarian

David Baker, editor

Georgia Public Library Service News (ISSN 1546-511X) is published bimonthly by the Georgia Public Library Service, the state agency that supports public libraries and works with them to improve the quality and variety of library services available to Georgia citizens of all ages.
This publication is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Georgia Public Library Service under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act.
Information presented in this newsletter will be provided in alternative formats on request. For more information about Georgia's libraries and literary events, or to post an event, visit our online calendar at www.georgialibraries.org

Renovated and rededicated
The Three Rivers Regional Library System (TRRLS) held a formal rededication ceremony for its newly refurbished St. Marys Public Library on Sept. 17. Welcoming the 150 people who attended were board of trustee members (from left) JoAnn P. White, Jim Caskey, TRRLS Director Linda Kean, Penny Hahn, Judy B. Armantrout, State Librarian Dr. Lamar Veatch, Arlene C. Norris, Doug Cooper, Victoria A. Mead and Frederick A. Mastin Jr. The library's recent renovation added approximately 7,500 square feet of space to the building, effectively doubling its size. According to Kean, patrons annually check out more than 100,000 items from St. Marys, which is the southernmost library on the Georgia coast.

1800 Century Place, Suite 150 Atlanta, GA 30345-4304
A Unit of the University System of Georgia

PRSRT STD US POSTAGE
PAID ATLANTA, GA PERMIT NO. 213