The Mountain Regional Library System (MRLS) 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 consisting of four branches in Fannin County, Towns County, and Union County,

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 ...

, United States. MRLS 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 that covers 53 library systems in 143 counties of Georgia. Any resident in a PINES supported library system has access to over 10.6 million books in the system's circulation. 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

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

s indexing thousands of

periodicals Periodical literature (singularly called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) consists of Publication, published works that appear in new releases on a regular schedule (''issues'' or ''numbers'', often numerically divided into annu ...

and

scholarly journals An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the dissemination, scr ...

. It also boasts over 10,000 journal titles in full text.

History

The Mountain Regional Library System originated as a small public library to service the counties of Towns and Union, Georgia. This library, aptly named the Towns-Union Regional Library, was founded in 1946 by both the counties, as well as Young Harris College, which agreed to sponsor and provide space for the library in its infancy. The library thus was originally set up in the Rich Building on Young Harris College's campus. By 1957, Fannin County was added to the regional library changing its name to the lengthy Fannin-Towns-Union Regional Library. In the following year, 1958, this name was shortened to the current Mountain Regional Library System. The Fannin branch built their new facility in the library system in 1973 in Blue Ridge. In 2010 the Union County Public Library in Blairsville renovated its building, adding a genealogy room, community room, and used book store. It is currently the most visited library in the system. By 2014 the Towns County Public Library in Hiawassee also underwent renovations, costing $1 million, to completely refurbish the building and update it to modern standards.

Library systems in neighboring counties

* Northwest Georgia Regional Library System to the west * Sequoyah Regional Library System to the south west * Chestatee Regional Library System to the south * Northeast Georgia Regional Library System 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)