The history of the Orange Beach Library is somewhat different.
The Orange Beach Public Library was established in 1992 and started operations with 3,000 donated books and nothing else -- no furniture, computers, office equipment or staff. Marsha Owens was hired as the director and started in June. The library began providing reference and interlibrary loan service in October and started circulating materials in December. At the end of the first year we had 904 patrons, 4,600 items, and circulation of 7,683. 10,400 patrons visited the library during that first year.
In the fall of 1995 we renovated and moved into the city's old post office building. We began offering free internet access to the public in 1995, the first library in the county to do so! We added staff and started offering reading groups, writer's groups and other adult programming. In 1999 we were awarded a Blue Ribbon for excellence from the Alabama Library Association. We were the first library in the state to receive this award.
By 1999 we were again out of space and began planning for a new larger library. Our holdings have grown to over 25,000 items with about 8,000 registered card holders. Our circulation in 1999 rose to over 60,000 and we had almost 50,000 visitors to the library in that year.
Today we occupy a wonderful new building on Wolf Bay with a full time staff of eight and one part time person. We have a large collection of books, videos and audio books. We continue to offer a variety of reading, writing, and storytelling programs for adults and children through in house programs and outside lecturers.
The overall mission of Orange Beach Public Library is to provide materials and services to meet the informational, educational and recreational needs of the residents of the City of Orange Beach and of Baldwin County and to visitors in our area.