Coastal Plain Library System Director Sandy Hester named Georgia Public Library System’s Librarian of the Year

TIFTON — Sandy Hester, director of the Coastal Plain Regional Library System, recently received the Librarian of the Year Award from the Georgia Public Library System.

Hester’s award was announced at the quarterly public library director meeting in December. The Librarian of the Year is one of three awards given out by GPLS.

Hester said she was in complete shock when she realized she had been selected for the honor.

“I didn’t even think that I was nominated,” Hester said. “Julie Walker, who’s the state librarian, begins to read some of the nominations, and she doesn’t have the name associated. (I thought) ‘Oh, these are really nice things to say about someone,’ never thinking that she was speaking about me.”

GPLS also gives out awards for Library of the Year and Library Champion of the Year. The three awards honor different aspects of library service.

Other library directors and library personnel nominated Hester for the award and the GPLS awards committee chose her from the nominations. Officials said the nominations were based on her work with a recent merger between the Fitzgerald-Ben Hill County Public Library, which was formerly an independent library system, and the Coastal Plain Regional Library System that now encompasses six counties.

During the merger, Hester served as both the interim director of the entire CPRL system as well as the interim director at the Fitzgerald-Ben Hill County library.

Hester was modest about the recognition.

“It wasn’t my accomplishment, I was just involved in it,” Hester said. “I couldn’t have acted as the interim director in two different systems if I didn’t have a fantastic support staff behind me.”

The board of trustees with the Fitzgerald-Ben Hill library decided to join CPRL due to funding issues they faced in 2018. Hester explained that by joining the regional library system, they could still operate with their own board of trustees while also benefiting from shared services with the other libraries in the CPRL system.

“The goal, however, for all of our libraries is to increase funding from the local agencies,” Hester said, “But in an environment where sometimes that’s just not possible, we want to make sure that we are using the money that we have in the most effective way possible.”

Hester said it was the first time anyone could remember two library systems merging together.

The CPRL regional branch will host a reception in honor of Hester being named the 2019 GPLS Librarian of the Year at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The reception will take place at the regional headquarters at 2014 Chesnut Ave. in Tifton and is open to the public to celebrate Hester’s accomplishment.

“I couldn’t have gotten the job accomplished without a host of people behind me or without the great support of the communities,” Hester said. “We’re hoping to be able to use this publicity that we’re getting to continue the conversation of why libraries are important.”