Allen Memorial Library

First Baptist Church Decatur Media Center

About Our Library

Located on the second floor of our Sanctuary building, The Allen Memorial Library and Media Center provides quality reading selections and media resources for church members and the local Decatur community.

Our church library contains over 15,323 cataloged items, including 

• Books

• Bibles and Commentaries 

• Periodicals

• Audiobooks

• Movies and films

• A/V equipment rental

• Reading programs and curriculum

• And much more!

Library Collections

Books for Adults  

We have books about our world, the latest fiction bestsellers, non-fiction texts to help with Sunday School study, self-help books, history, biography, periodicals, large-print books, audio-books, and computers to look stuff up. Books we can’t use in our collection, we offer for sale.

Books for Children and Youth

We’re your children’s source for the latest award-winners! Our volunteer staff includes people who know children’s books inside-and-out and can recommend top fiction and non-fiction titles to put in your collection (pre-K—Young Adult). 

Resources for the Decatur Reading Community

The Library is an information source and cheerleader for book festivals (Decatur Book Festival) and author talks (Georgia Center for the Book, Conversations, local bookstores). We post calendars for community book sales, book recommendations, interesting websites — all things BOOK.

Beth’s Books

Each month, Beth Withers, one of our library volunteers, shares the newest books that have been added to our church library this past month:

• PICTURE BOOK

  • I Love Being a Capybara by Em Bruce
    Through this sweet rhyming story we learn all about capybaras, native to all the countries in South America except Chile. They are the largest living rodents and have webbed feet for swimming. The charming illustrations add even more information about capybaras. Donated by Shirley Silver.

• JUVENILE FICTION

  • Up Periscope! How Engineer Raye Montague Revolutionized Shipbuilding by Jennifer Swanson

    The inspiring story about Raye Montague “who created the first comprehensive computer program to design ships for the U. S. Navy”. She was not supposed to go to engineering school but Raye had a plan that took her all the way to the U. S. Navy. “There, she was assigned an impossible task: to come up with a single computer program that could design every part of a ship. It had never been done before-but Raye’s groundbreaking program revolutionized the way ships and submarines were built.” Notes at the back of the book add a lot of information about Raye Montague and the author, Jennifer Swanson, who graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy! Donated by Shirley Silver.

• ADULT FICTION

  • The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave
    A sequel to the New York Times bestseller The Last Things He Told Me, this new book by Laura Dave continues the story of Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter who are on the run from a vicious crime organization that is also threatening her husband, Owen. “The pacing is brisk from the very first page, with Dave nimbly juggling multiple perspectives and timelines in route to a finale that provides readers with satisfying answers to their questions. The result is a solid suspense novel with plenty of appeal for Dave fans and newcomers alike.”

• ADULT NON-FICTION

  • The Life and Times of Paul Samuel Sharian by his best friend Randy Louis Cox
    A fascinating look at not only the life of Paul Sharian but also the history of Decatur and the Sharian oriental rug company. Paul was a member of FBCD and the Verdery Sunday school class for a number of years. Donated by the author Randy Cox who also, with his wife, attends Verdery Sunday school and the 11:15 am sanctuary services.

Contact the Library

Give us a call at 404.373.1653 (ext. 2229) or send us a message using the form below.