The Three Rivers Regional Library System (TRRL) is a
public library
A public library is a 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 service, civil servants.
There are ...
system that serves the counties of
Brantley,
Camden,
Charlton,
Long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mensur ...
,
McIntosh
McIntosh, Macintosh, or Mackintosh (Gaelic: ') may refer to:
Products and brands
* Mackintosh, a form of waterproof raincoat
* Mackintosh's or John Mackintosh and Co., later Rowntree Mackintosh, former UK confectionery company now part of NestlĂ ...
, and
Wayne,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, United States. The administrative office of the system is located in
Jesup.
The library system is named after the three rivers that course through Southeast Georgia: the
St. Marys River, the
Altamaha River
The Altamaha River is a major river in the U.S. state of Georgia. It flows generally eastward for 137 miles (220 km) from its origin at the confluence of the Oconee River and Ocmulgee River towards the Atlantic Ocean, where it empties ...
, and the
Satilla River
The Satilla River rises in Ben Hill County, Georgia, United States, near the town of Fitzgerald, and flows in a mostly easterly direction to the Atlantic Ocean. Along its approximately U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high- ...
.
TRRL 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. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...
, 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 Tec ...
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, 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
Wayne County Library
![Wayne County library](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Wayne_County_library.jpg)
The founding of the Three Rivers Regional Library System may be attributed to the first library in Wayne County, as this county is the home of the current central headquarters for the system. Built in 1937 through efforts by the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
, the Wayne County Library started off with a small, inadequate building. By the end of 1938 many of the books in the collection were already in bad repair, and public funding of the library was minimal. Constant financial support was afforded to the library by the Georgia Library Commission for its first decade in order to stay afloat.
Towards the beginning of 1950 the Tecoma Garden Club helped to alleviate some of the library's financial issues. The club first secured permission and petitioned interested parties for monies to construct a library space in the local Community House. The initial goal of $2,000 was met and exceeded, and in the end the Garden Club has raised $6,000 to be used for the project. In order to incorporate the ideologies of the Garden Club with the wishes of the Public Library blueprints called for a library which included large windows and French doors looking out onto a grassed terrace, nestled in a grove of pine trees. Due to problems in construction the entire $6,000 fund was spent before the building saw completion. The City of Jesup provided $200 for plumbing and heating, and the rest of the $2,000 deficit was raised through more efforts by the Garden Club. The library officially opened on November 9, 1949, and is the building which is still in use today.
The library holds a
WPA mural titled "General Oglethorpe Concludes a Treaty of Amity
and Peace with the Creek Indians – May 18, 1733", painted in Jesup's United States post office in 1938 by
David Hutchison.
Regional History
The next county of the system to have a library was Camden County, which began its library also in 1949. Throughout the next fifty years six neighboring counties joined the system, and in 2000 the name was officially changed to Three Rivers Regional Library System.
In 2010 disagreements broke out between the library in
Glynn County and the rest of the system. By 2013 Glynn County formed its own library system in the county seat,
Brunswick, called the
Marshes of Glynn Libraries.
Branches
Library systems in neighboring counties
*
Ohoopee Regional Library System
The Ohoopee Regional Library System is a public library system serving the counties of Jeff Davis, Montgomery, Tattnall, and Toombs, Georgia. The logo of the system features a vidalia onion, as the region is home to Vidalia, Georgia where the ...
to the north
*
Live Oak Public Libraries
The Live Oak Public Libraries are a consortium of sixteen public libraries in the Savannah metropolitan area and Hinesville – Fort Stewart metropolitan area of Georgia, United States. The library provides services for Chatham County, Effingha ...
to the northeast
*
Marshes of Glynn Libraries to the east
*
Okefenokee Regional Library System
The Okefenokee Regional Library System (OKRLS) is a public library system serving the counties of Ware, Appling, Bacon, Clinch, and Pierce, Georgia. The headquarters for the library system is the Waycross-Ware County Public Library located in Way ...
to the west
References
External links
PINES catalog
{{authority control
County library systems in Georgia (U.S. state)
Public libraries in Georgia (U.S. state)