Friday, January 17, 2025

Athens Regional Library System Board Selects New Executive Director From Neighboring Piedmont Library System

***Beth McIntyre Replaces Valerie Bell***

Beth McIntyre, currently executive director of the Piedmont Regional Library System, will become executive director of the Athens Regional Library System effective March 17.

The Athens Regional Library System Board of Trustees on Thursday selected McIntyre after a search by its Personnel Committee to replace Valerie Bell, who stepped down as executive director of the Athens Regional Library System at the end of last year.

The Athens Regional Library System consists of 11 branch locations serving five counties in Northeast Georgia: Oconee, Athens-Clarke, Madison, Oglethorpe, and Franklin.

The Piedmont Regional Library System includes 10 libraries serving Banks, Barrow, and Jackson counties.

McIntyre has 34 years of library experience and has been the Executive Director of the Piedmont Regional Library System since 2011, according to a news release issued by the Athens Regional Library System on Friday afternoon.

According to her LinkedIn page, McIntyre has a Master of Library and Information Science degree from Florida State University and a Bachelor of Science English/Language Arts Teacher Education degree from the University of Georgia.

The annual compensation package approved at the Thursday meeting of the Regional Library System Board is $165,490.

Bell, as Executive Director, regularly attended the quarterly meetings of the Oconee County Library Board of Trustees, where she gave a director’s report and engaged in Board discussions across the full range of topics.

Thursday Meeting

Katie Morris, representing Madison County on the Library System Board of Trustees, gave the Personnel Committee report at the meeting on Thursday.

McIntyre From 
Press Release 1/17/2025

The Personnel Committee “has been conducting interviews for the position of executive director, and, after a lot of wonderful candidates, the Committee would like to put forward our recommendation,” she said.

Morris then made the motion that the offer be made to McIntyre.

The vote was unanimous, with Oconee County Library Board of Trustees Chair Rubielen Norris and Board Secretary Fred Lutz representing Oconee County.

Prior to the report of the Personnel Committee the full Board met for 20 minutes in executive session and approved the compensation package to be offered to McIntyre.

Year In Review

Darcy Calia, Public Information Officer, Athens Regional Library System, told the regional Board on Thursday that the system “broke a million circulation in 2024,” a 12 percent increase over 2023, or “an additional 110,000 items circulated.”

Morris 1/16/2025

“We also had an almost 25 percent increase in patrons walking through our doors,” she said. “That an additional 112,000 patrons walking through our library doors.” The total figure was 576,619.

Calia said she was including numbers from all 11 libraries.

“We had an 88 percent increase in Chromebook checkouts,” she said.

“We also had a 25 percent increase in program attendance,” she said, “an addition 17,000 people.” Total attendance was 87,293.

Calia said she will provide breakdowns by county shortly.

The flyer Calia passed out reported that 44 percent of the population of the five counties holds a library card. The libraries issued 13,129 new cards in 2024, according to the flyer.

A total of 2,024 patrols booked meeting rooms at the 11 libraries, the flyer states.

Video

The video below is of the Jan. 16 meeting, held at the Athens Library on Baxter Street.

Board Chair David "Chip" Woods asked the Board to vote to go into executive session to discuss the salary offer for McIntyre at 27:06 in the video.

Morris gave her report upon return of the Board to open session.

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