![Digital Library of Georgia and New Georgia Encyclopedia staff wishing GALILEO a happy birthday! Note the GALILEO birthday banners that youcan print for your GALILEO celebration.](http://blog.dlg.galileo.usg.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/DLG_NGE_Happy-Birthday-GALILEO_resized-300x225.jpg)
Today, we are celebrating GALILEO’s birthday!
On this day (September 21) in 1995, GALILEO went online. For twenty years, GALILEO has worked to provide Georgia citizens with the best access to high quality educational resources regardless of their location or economic status. Georgians of all stripes have used GALILEO in their homes, schools, and libraries for research and learning. The Digital Library of Georgia is a GALILEO initiative based at the University of Georgia Libraries that collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life.
If you aren’t a regular GALILEO user, here are a few good reasons to start:
- GALILEO is just as easy as Google, and in fact, it’s better. Searching GALILEO is just as simple, intuitive, and powerful as searching any commercial search engine, even Google. The difference is that GALILEO provides information you can trust, without bias, advertising, scams or viruses.
- If we have access to it, GALILEO can find it. GALILEO searches much more than just scholarly databases. It searches your library’s catalog, Georgia state government documents and records, resources like Consumer Reports, and a huge collection of Georgia-specific resources.
- GALILEO can do a lot more than just find it for you. With GALILEO, users can save, print or email results. GALILEO also provides citation information and resources to make citing your research easy.
- GALILEO has been around for 20 years, pretty much since the start of the Internet. GALILEO has an established history of providing the best resources available to the citizens of Georgia, and has grown steadily in terms of materials as well as population covered. Every citizen of the state has access to GALILEO.
- GALILEO has been around for 20 years, and isn’t going anywhere. Surviving 20 years in the Internet age is an accomplishment. GALILEO has shown it can adapt with the times and technology, and will continue to serve Georgia for many more years to come. You don’t have to worry about GALILEO going away.
- GALILEO goes with you. Through their schools and libraries, anybody in Georgia can access GALILEO, from anywhere. GALILEO doesn’t just work in the library, it’s available from home and on all your mobile devices as well.
- GALILEO is free for you. GALILEO is a program provided by a mix of state and federal funds, but costs nothing for the end user.
For GALILEO users, here are ways that you can participate in GALILEO’s 20th anniversary celebration:
- Download GALILEO’s 20th birthday poster, available here.
- Add your information to a customizable event flyer, available here.
- Submit photos of your GALILEO birthday event here.
- COMO Conference: Are you attending COMO in Athens this October? If so, be sure to join in the Birthday Celebration at the 2:30 afternoon break.
Congratulations to GALILEO on twenty years!