The earliest records for a library in the region are dated to March 11, 1810 where an active Library Society was founded by a citizen named Sterling Elder. Not much else is known of this library system save for references of the society meetings in the newspaper at the time, the Athens Gazette. The first library to be built that is now part of the system is the Lavonia-Carnegie Library in Lavonia, built in 1911 with funding from Andrew Carnegie. A second library began in 1915 when two citizens of the county, Mary Oberby and L. Campbell, donated their collection of books to the public starting the Mary Overby Library. The library at this time was located on the second floor of the Ashford Building on Main Street. The Mary Overby Library ran until 1926 when it donated its entire collection to the Oconee High School Library.
Regional library formation
With the advent of the Works Progress Administration the county Board of Trustees and Athens Woman's Club began organizing a regional library. The headquarters were in Athens, and thus the original name was the Athens Regional Library. This was the first regional library in the state. Clarke County, Oconee County, and Oglethorpe County were all involved in this system. A bookmobile donated by the WPA was used to service the region. Book loans were offered to residents of the county at the rate of two books allowed checked out per week, one being fiction and the other being non-fiction. In 1955 a man by the name of Evangelos Terzapoulos from Athens, Greece donated a Grecian urn estimated to be 2,600 years old as a token of friendship. The final two counties to join the system were Madison County in 1953, and Franklin County in 1974. During the 1970s the library began to show signs of age and overcrowding was becoming an issue. A campaign was set up to raise money for a new building. This new building, located on Research Road, was dedicated in May 1976. This library was expanded again in 1987. Another expansion came in 1991 when the Bogart Library showed similar signs of overcrowding. Soon after, in 1977 the Carnegie library in Lavonia underwent complete renovations as well. In 2011 the main branch in Athens-Clarke County received money to renovate their current library, adding 20,000 square feet to the already expansive 63,000 square foot building.
Branches
Library systems in neighboring counties
Northeast Georgia Regional Library System to the north.
