On your left, look for a sturdy red-brick building with a bright white arched entrance and the words “HAWKES CHILDRENS LIBRARY” across the top.
Now, a small confession: when people say “the library,” they usually mean one building. Around here, it’s more like a whole neighborhood of libraries working together. The Sara Hightower Regional Library System covers six public libraries serving Floyd, Polk, and Chattooga Counties, with headquarters at the Rome-Floyd County Library. Think of it as a team effort… with fewer pep rallies and more paper cuts.
The big magic trick is the PINES library card. One card, a whole lot of temptation. If you’re a Georgia resident, you can use it not just in this regional system, but across roughly 275 participating libraries statewide. That’s the kind of networking LinkedIn wishes it had. And the system also connects with GLASS, a statewide service that helps people who are blind or physically disabled get access to library materials-making “open to everyone” mean something real.
Because this system stretches across multiple counties, it becomes a high-speed exchange zone for books. In 2015 alone, about 30,000 books moved through interlibrary loan-basically a constant relay race of novels, cookbooks, and last-minute school projects. Somewhere, a librarian’s sorting cart is still recovering.
The roots of all this go back to the early 1900s, when Rome wanted a proper public library and civic leaders wrote to Andrew Carnegie-the steel tycoon who loved funding libraries almost as much as he loved rules. On December 24, 1909, he approved $15,000 for a building-around $500,000 today-on the condition the town paid $1,500 a year for upkeep, about $50,000 today. And he had one firm preference: no big auditorium inside. Carnegie didn’t want libraries turning into lecture halls… he wanted them turning people into readers.
That first public library opened in 1911 with about 1,800 books, many coming from an older subscription collection-the kind where reading came with a membership fee, like a gym, but with less sweating and more Shakespeare.
When you’re set, Forum River Center is a 10-minute walk heading north.
