We raise money, volunteer, and speak up for the Orange County Public Library, helping fund programs, equipment, outreach, and other needs beyond the public budget.
Right now
The Friends are an independent, volunteer-run nonprofit supporting the Orange County Public Library since 1981, from the Main Library in Hillsborough to the Southern Branch in Carrboro and communities across the county. Library staff identify priorities for library service; the Friends raise funds and organize volunteers, book sales, outreach, and advocacy to help meet them. More about the Friends →
Love the library? There are lots of ways to be a Friend. Join for $25 a year, give what you can, volunteer when it fits, shop a book sale, or simply help spread the word.
Fossil digs. Poetry on demand. Take-home books. Author talks. Prizes worth reading for.
The Friends help give library staff room to make programs bigger, more creative, and more memorable for kids, teens, and adults all year long.
Sometimes helping the library means buying the not-so-glamorous thing it needs. Sometimes it means a Book Walk or better seating for young readers.
The Friends have funded self-checkout stations, e-readers, a projector, outdoor reading experiences, neurodivergent-friendly furniture, and plenty of smaller needs in between.
Great libraries start with great people.
We treat staff at both branches to appreciation events, help send them to conferences, and support the professional development that brings fresh ideas back to Orange County. The county funds library positions; the Friends get to add a little extra support and appreciation.
Sometimes supporting the library means speaking up.
The Friends help make it easier for neighbors to show their support, stay informed, and take part when the library needs a strong community voice. We also support projects beyond the library walls when they put books, reading, and learning into more hands across Orange County.
“The Friends’ support provides nourishment to turn our librarians’ bright ideas into flourishing resources for the community.
The value of service and volunteer help by the Friends contributes to the thriving growth of the Orange County Main Library.”
Memberships, gifts, book sales, volunteer work, and advocacy add up. Here’s what that looks like.
Memberships and donors: the Friends’ membership records, today. Projects and recorded support: the board-approved project list, at the amounts approved, 2010–2026. Grants to the library are stated separately, from the treasurer’s books, on Financials.
Few things show what a public library does for its community better than Summer Reading.
Summer Reading 2026
Dinosaurs, archaeology and paleontology, under twin banners: Unearth New Adventures and Stomp Into Stories. The May 30 kickoff drew more than 1,200 people to River Park for face painting, balloons, Poetry Fox’s typed-to-order poems and a fossil dig.
Participation figures are from the library’s season report; the comparable state series is added when the annual report is filed.
See the full Summer Reading story →Shop gently used books at low prices. Friends members shop first at the Thursday evening member preview.
About Book SaleThere’s always more to discover at your library.
For You and Your Community
Find programs, technology, learning tools, research resources, and digital collections among the 170 resources your library card already gives you access to.
Explore cardholder resources →For Your Wallet
OCPL costs the average resident about $35.94 a year. Estimate what the books, programs, and digital resources you actually use would cost anywhere else.
Calculate your library value →For Your Next Book
645 titles landed on the shelves in July, across more than 111,000 in the catalog: books and eBooks, audiobooks, DVDs and games, sorted by the topics the catalog itself uses.
Browse new arrivals →For Orange County Readers
378 authors who have called Orange County home, with their books in the catalog, their websites, and the Friends events that brought them to the library.
Meet local authors →Community Advocacy
In June 2026, facing a proposed $200,000 budget cut, the Friends asked the community to say what the library means to them. In under a week, 502 neighbors responded. The Friends gathered those responses and delivered them to county commissioners; the adopted budget preserved seven-day service at both branches.
The Friends of the Southern Branch were critical to the decades-long effort to secure better library service for Carrboro and southern Orange County and, ultimately, a permanent branch. They helped keep the issue visible, build public support, and sustain the push through years of planning and debate. When Southern Branch opened in 2025, they helped fund the books on its shelves. In 2026, they joined with us, bringing two histories of advocacy and support together in one countywide Friends organization.
The history of Orange County's libraries is a story of the community coming together to support them, from the first reading societies to one countywide system.
Figures from the Friends’ record of the June 2026 campaign; the same figures, broken out, are on Annual Impact and Library Funding.
Get occasional updates about book sales, library events, advocacy, volunteer opportunities, and ways to help.
