Seasons Greetings! 

What a year we have had at Middle Georgia Regional Libraries! I love to take this time at the end of each year to reflect upon our previous year. In this reflection, I am so grateful to the over 300,000 visitors to one of our libraries in the past year. Whether you were joining us for a family program, to research for your business, or to check out one of our items, of the many places that you could receive these resources from you continue to walk through our doors and we are grateful for the opportunity to have served you! 

2022 has been a great year for MGRL. We've enjoyed seeing the increase in the circulation of materials as well as library visitors. We offered and enhanced our library services and encouraged patrons to go beyond the stacks and explore our library programming.

Thank you to our community partners and all who have contributed to our mission to support literacy in our communities and connect people to the information necessary to improve their lives.

We are grateful to all of our partners but particularly our PLAY Card school districts of Baldwin, Bibb, Jones, Macon, and Twiggs Counties. Your partnership in connecting your students directly to the public library this year means that 37,477 students now have easy access to educational resources available at the library. In most cases, just visiting and providing their lunch card number now allows them to use library services. We are also thrilled to support our partner, the Friends of Macon-Bibb Libraries, in the relocation and development of a workroom and sales at 5494 Forsyth Road, Macon.

This year we are so proud of hosting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab to train all of our branches and many of our neighboring systems' staff members in STEAM programming. This opportunity has paid forward into new opportunities for our patrons and families. 

We've spent this year connecting with the communities we serve in many ways, from providing a space for job seekers and employers to connect back in February with a job fair hosted by the Business and Nonprofit Center (BANC) at Washington Memorial Library to becoming more in tune with nature by joining the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail and adding seed libraries at different locations (just to name a few). It has been a fun year filled with great successes and fond memories with you. We look forward to continuing this in the New Year.

As we look ahead to 2023, we are excited to work towards the renovation of the Mary Vinson Memorial Library in Milledgeville, thanks to the commitment of the City of Milledgeville, Baldwin County, and especially the Georgia Legislature and Georgia Public Library Service.  

We wish you all a happy holiday season. See you in 2023!

Read on!
Jennifer Lautzenheier, Director