NEWBORN, Ga. — The city of Newborn has decided to go it alone in its plan to reopen its former Newton County library branch.

Newborn City Council recently decided to reopen the Jeanette Adams Zeigler Library after the county library system chose to turn it over to the city. 

“It will be an independent, little library,” said longtime City Councilwoman Martha Ellwanger.

“There’s a tremendous need for it ... children’s programs,” she said.

Grand reopening is set for Sept. 7 at 10 a.m.. Volunteers will operate it Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to noon, and 2-5 p.m., she said.

The late Jeanette Adams Zeigler was a retired Newton County teacher who led the nonprofit Friends of Newborn Inc. 

Friends of Newborn organized funding for restoration and renovation of the 136-year-old Childs Building, which included Newborn Memorial Hall, at the town’s main intersection at the corner of Johnson Street and Georgia Hwy. 142. 

Previous owners had neglected the building and it was in ruins — a tree literally growing from its former foundation — before work began in 1994 on its seven-year restoration that was completed in 2001. Newborn later moved its town hall to the building.

According to information from the Newton County Library System, the Jeanette Adams Zeigler Library began operations in 1981 as a “deposit collection” at Newborn Town Hall. The deposit collection was rotated with new books quarterly from the Covington Library and was defined as “a significant loan of materials for an extended period of time.”

Ellwanger, who helped spearhead the move to reopen the facility, said the library was established as a “lending library” in 1998. Friends of Newborn Inc. then started a “Friends of the Library” organization in 2002.

“They secured an area in the Childs Building and over a period of years the Friends worked with the Library to expand and improve the space for the deposit collection, eventually creating a 1,200-square-foot enclosed library area,” according to the library system. 

It stated that both the library system and Friends group contributed furniture and books “resulting in a small, informal lending library.”

The library system eventually expanded the Newborn services to provide basic computer equipment for public use, and staff for regular programs including storytime and general library assistance to the public.

Newborn’s library in 2008 became a legally established “Service Outlet” and part of the county library system through a formal agreement between the Newborn Town Council and county library system.

The agreement established how materials and services would be provided and enabled the library to make the Newborn deposit collection eligible for “Service Outlet” status with Georgia Public Library Service, the state’s library services governing agency, according to the library system. 

The action made the Newborn Library Service Outlet eligible for grant funding from the state that gave it a permanent lending collection, internet access and library services, including access to the Georgia Library Public Information Network for Electronic Services (PINES)

After Zeigler’s death in 2009, the building housing the library and town hall was renamed the Zeigler-Childs Building. In November 2014, the Newton County Library System Board of Trustees voted to formally name the Newborn location the Jeanette Adams Zeigler Library.

The library system operated the Zeigler Library until 2020 when it closed its doors like other governmental and private service providers because of COVID-19, Ellwanger said.

However, staffing cuts prompted the system not to immediately reopen the Newborn service outlet, she said. After some residents questioned when it would reopen, the council moved to reopen it as a city service, she said.

The county system’s Board of Trustees then moved earlier this year to terminate the 2008 library agreement and turn it back over to the city government at the cost of $1 for all contents.

Attorney Joe Reitman told the city council in June the only negative is that the library would not be a member of PINES any longer “and that is valuable and if the town would like to look into joining another system” such as Jasper or Morgan Counties, then “they can do that research or continue to just run as an independent municipal library,” according to the meeting minutes.

“Mayor (Gregg)  Ellwanger added that he would encourage forming a library committee also.” 

Councilwoman Ellwanger said the city still must determine the cost and how it would fund the library's operations.