PINES: Georgia's Statewide Library Card

     So, what is PINES, you ask?   That stands for the Georgia Library Public Information Network for Electronic Services.  It's Georgia's public library automation and lending network for 285 public libraries and affiliated service outlets in 143 counties.  PINES serves patrons in all 159 Georgia counties.
    PINES is an initiative of the Georgia Public Library Service, a unit of the University System of Georgia.  Fifty percent of Georgia's population and more than 80 percent of Georgia's public library systems rely on the PINES network for their library service.
     PINES creates a statewide "borderless library" that eliminates geographic and socio-economic barriers and provides equal access to information for all Georgians.
     Georgians with PINES cards have access to materials beyond what is available on their local library shelves, and they enjoy the benefits of a shared collection of approximately 10 million books and materials that can be delivered to their home library with no charge to them.
     OK...how do Georgia's citizens benefit from PINES?
     Any resident of Georgia may obtain a free PINES card by visiting any PINES library. (Your Moultrie-Colquitt County Library is a PINES library.)  In addition to browsing and checking out books on the shelves of their local libraries, PINES allows library users to log on to www.gapines.org, browse or search the online catalog for books and other library materials, and have their selections delivered to their local library.
     Look at these statistics of PINES by the numbers:

• 2.4 million PINES library cards are in use.
• Nearly 1 of 4 Georgians (23.8%) has a PINES card.
• PINES serves patrons in all 159 Georgia counties.
• 10 million items (books, tapes, CDs, videos) are available.
• There were 19.1 million circulations in FY 2010.

     With an annual budget of $1.3 million, the PINES program costs less than 60 cents for each cardholder!
     We're here to help you find any information you need.  Do you have your PINES library card?

Maybe You Should Put Your PINES Card On Your Keyring

One of my favorite places in the whole wide world to visit is Jekyll Island. Of course, when Ann, who is our bookkeeper and also works in Genealogy, told me about the vacation she took last week, she didn't know that. She just told me about her big adventure on
Jekyll.
She said they stayed in a cabin a block from the water, visited the turtle museum, and took the sightseeing tram ride. They even considered going bike riding. They visited the gift shops, candy store, and book store. I could envision each place she talked
about.
When she told me her favorite place at Jekyll was Driftwood Beach, I could smell the water, dig my toes into the sand, and hear the birds call to each other as they sailed over the waves.
She told me while she and her friend Gwen were at Driftwood Beach, they sat on a driftwood log and had a couple of visitors take their picture. And they took the visitors' picture.
Not long after that, while Ann and Gwen were still there, they found a set of old keys on that driftwood log. The keys were rusty, and the ladies felt they had washed up from the water and got hung
on the log.
Then to her surprise, Ann said Gwen shouted, "There's a PINES card on here!" And sure enough, along with all those keys and a few other plastic-coated cards, was a PINES card.
Now, Ann, being an employee of the Moultrie-Colquitt County Library, knew exactly what to do. She called our library and talked to Monique, who looked up the card number in the PINES system and found out who it belonged to.
Next Ann and Gwen took the card and keys to the Brunswick Library and explained the situation to the staff.
After convincing the Brunswick staff to call the owner of the keys, they were able to talk to the woman. The lady said they'd never been on Driftwood Beach, but had been on the nearby pier. The woman said they'd taken their car apart, looking for the keys. She finally had to call her husband, who had gone to Brunswick, and have him come back to Jekyll with spare keys. She was astounded that the keys had been found...thanks to that great PINES card.
So, the keys and cards, which were lost on Jekyll Island and found by two Moultrie women, were put in the mail to the woman who lived in Cobbtown, Georgia.
Quite a big adventure, huh? Makes me consider putting my PINES library card on my keyring. How about you?
And that Cobbtown, Georgia library patron couldn't have had a better "finder" of her keys than Ann. Way to go, Ann!!!