The Public Information Network for Electronic Services (or PINES) is the nearly statewide library consortium and its online library catalog of the Georgia Public Library Service. By June 2017, the catalog consisted of books from 284 library facilities in 143 counties across the U.S. state of Georgia with a collection size of 10.6 million items, all of which are searchable by anyone with a PINES library card which can be obtained free of charge from any PINES-participating library. The PINES system effectively turns most of the state of Georgia into one huge library. PINES cardholders are able to request an interlibrary loan from any affiliated library, and the single statewide library card grants access to the hundreds of branches associated with the service. PINES also manages the booking of rooms, the use of remote self-check machines, allows automated search and retrieval, as well as supports RSS and Schema.org standards. PINES developed the open-source software Evergreen, an integrated library system which it and other library consortia use to manage their online catalogs. History PINES development In 1998 a white paper was created exploring the feasibility of a statewide public library card for Georgia. As Georgia had consistently ranked among the lowest states in public library funding per capita it was agreed that a universal library card could be of great benefit to the residents of Georgia as long as the affiliated libraries were unified under one single integrated library system (ILS). It was also believed that by establishing a state-wide library cost to individual library systems would be lowered as they wouldn't need to maintain their own integrated library systems, and certain tasks could be centralized through the state saving additional time. By 1999 PINES became a reality, administered by the current Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS). It initially was used as a Y2K state-funded project to address needs of public libraries without Y2K-compliant ILS computer services. These libraries, mostly rural, were deemed not to have programs that would survive into the 21st century. Some libraries were still not automated as well. The PINES initiative would give these libraries access first, bringing their services into the modern era. Looking to complete the project before the year 2000, on April 8, 1999 the initial contract to develop the ILS was awarded to KPMG partnered with the SIRSI Corporation and Sun Microsystems. In December 1999 the new software was finished and ready for