Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Theme

UNC & Campus Life

Students, faculty, buildings, departments, activism, and athletics.

In briefChartered in 1789 and opened in 1795, the university made Chapel Hill and has shaped the county ever since: its buildings and departments, its students’ politics from the Speaker Ban to the 1970 strike, and the workers who kept it running. The storylines here follow desegregation, Silent Sam, the Navy Pre-Flight School, the Playmakers and the medical center.

10,092 indexed works are connected with this theme. 67 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
University of North Carolina, 1797
University of North Carolina, 1797

Events and storylines

Named events and episodes the index follows in detail. Each has its own page.

The founding of the University and Chapel Hill, 1789–1795The 1789 charter, the trustees’ 1792 choice of New Hope Chapel Hill at their Hillsborough meeting, the Old East cornerstone of October 1793, and the first students of 1795 Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968The law barring “visiting speakers” from state campuses, the 1966 wall speeches and Dickson v. Sitterson Black student activism at UNCThe Black Student Movement and the campaigns it led from 1967 on Silent SamThe Confederate monument on McCorkle Place, its 1913 dedication and its 2018 toppling Killing of James Cates, 1970The Chapel Hill man killed in the Pit at UNC in November 1970; headings are still being sought Desegregating the University of North Carolina, 1951–1955Five Black students began law school classes on June 22, 1951, after the courts barred the university from refusing them; the first Black undergraduates, the Frasier brothers and John Brandon, followed in 1955
Show all 17 events and episodes
UNC’s student strike against the Vietnam War, May 1970After the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State killings, some 6,000 students joined a strike that suspended business as usual on campus UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996The Black cafeteria workers who led the two walkouts of 1969, Mary Smith and Elizabeth Brooks among them, with the Black Student Movement as their ally, and the housekeepers who organised in the 1990s The movement for a freestanding Black Cultural Center, 1991–1993Students, faculty, staff, and athletes campaigned for a building of its own, the struggle that led to the Sonja Haynes Stone Center The Navy Pre-Flight School at Chapel Hill, 1942–1945The wartime cadet school that filled the campus with aviation trainees, remade its athletics fields, and left the town a record in photographs The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC PressFrederick Koch’s folk-play company of 1918 and the university press of 1922, the two institutions that made Chapel Hill a literary place UNC expansion and neighborhood changeThe university’s growth into the streets around it: land taking, campus planning, student housing pressure, and the neighborhoods that changed UNC housekeepers’ movement, 1991–1996The Housekeepers Association’s campaign for pay, respect, and a grievance process, settled in 1996 Black workers and campus laborFrom the enslaved and hired laborers of the university’s first century to the staff of the affirmative-action era: the cooks, janitors, laundresses, and grounds crews whose work ran the campus, mostly unnamed in its records North Carolina Memorial Hospital and the medical center, from 1952The state’s Good Health Plan built a teaching hospital at Chapel Hill; it admitted its first patients on 2 September 1952, and the hospitals and School of Medicine that grew around it made the town a medical center Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha, 2015Three students killed at their Chapel Hill home on February 10, 2015, and how the university and town remembered them The university closes and reopensReconstruction Republicans took control of the trustees in 1868, Solomon Pool’s presidency emptied the campus, the university closed in 1871, and in 1875 the legislature revived it and Cornelia Phillips Spencer rang the bell

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Material

Periodicals 3,240Histories 1,309Photographs & portraits 1,263Biography 478Directories 304other types 2,212

Period

18th century 107Revolution (1775–1783) 2519th century 476Civil War (1861–1865) 7520th century 1,266World War I era 28World War II era 8721st century 38

Place

Orange County 3,423North Carolina (statewide) 3,169Chapel Hill 2,161Hillsborough 150Carrboro 67City of Durham (neighboring) 64

Widely held

Carolina Basketball: A Century of Excellence

Lucas, Adam · 2010 · University of North Carolina Press

Adam Lucas marks one hundred years of basketball at the University of North Carolina in this illustrated history, published by UNC Press in 2010 in association with the athletics department. Chapters follow the program from the game's arrival on campus and the 'White Phantoms' of the Southern Conference through the founding of the ACC, the 1957 season, Dean Smith's changes to the game and the title seasons of 1982, 1993, 2005 and 2009, closing with a century of statistics. 289 pages.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: North Carolina Tar Heels (Basketball team).

✓ Held at OCPL · 796.323 LUCAS NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Chapel Hill Murder and Mayhem

Jackson, Rick · 2023

Rick Jackson's true crime history of Chapel Hill, published by The History Press in 2023, in 28 short chapters. Cases include the Efland bank robbery, the execution of John Henry Breeze, the unsolved murder of Suellen Evans, the killing at the Internationalist Bookstore and the death of Eve Carson.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA CH Historical Society

The Blue Divide: Duke, North Carolina, and the Battle on Tobacco Road

Moore, Johnny; Chansky, Art · 2014 · Triumph Books

The Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry written together by Johnny Moore and Art Chansky, the latter a sports reporter who has followed it since his student days at UNC. The book opens with the 2014 season and moves through recruiting battles old and new, 'Black and Blue Sunday', 'Blood and Roses', and chapters on the rivalry's heroes, leaders and teachers, with a foreword by Jay Bilas and a photo gallery. Published by Triumph Books in 2014, 289 pages.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: North Carolina Tar Heels (Basketball team).

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Miss Mary's Money

Jones, H. G. · 2014 · McFarland & Co.

H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

✓ Held at OCPL NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson Methodist CH Historical Society

The Chronicles of the Bicentennial Observance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Tepper, Steven J. · 1998

Steven J. Tepper's chronicle of how the University of North Carolina marked its bicentennial in 1993 and 1994. An appendix reprints the University Day speeches of October 12, 1993, given by Paul Hardin, James B. Hunt Jr., C.D. Spangler, William C. Friday, Charles Kuralt and President Bill Clinton, plus bicentennial addresses by Li Lu, Francis S. Collins and Richard J. Richardson. Published by the university in Chapel Hill, 1998; 284 pages.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 378.756 TEP NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Davidson Wingate UNCSA CH Historical Society

Game Changers

Chansky, Art · 2016

Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: North Carolina Tar Heels (Basketball team).

✓ Held at OCPL · 796.323 CHANSKY NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Methodist CH Historical Society
Show 2 more

William Friday

Link, William A. · 1995

Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: University of North Carolina (System) -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC BIO FRIDAY LIN NC Cardinal UNC Duke Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Methodist Wingate UNCSA CH Historical Society

Light on the Hill

Snider, William D. · 1992

William D. Snider's history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1992. It runs 370 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Reviewed in History of Education Quarterly (1993), The Journal of Southern History (1993).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 378.756 SNI NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Wingate CH Historical Society

Recently indexed: The University of North Carolina : the educational advantages which it offers and how to obtain them (1891) · The '56er's '66 "Yackety Yack" : (plagerized and misquoted from various and sundry 1956 editions of The daily Tar Heel) (1966) · The "poet of man," (1859) · The "value-added" effects of two-year college transfer programs (1976) · 100 years of Epsilon of Phi Gamma Delta, 1851-1951 : centennial celebration, March 31, 1951 (1951) · 150th anniversary alumni gift (1924)

Search all 10,092 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 378.756 HEN The Campus of the First State University Henderson, Archibald · 1949

    Archibald Henderson's history of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, its buildings and grounds from the founding in the 1790s onward. Henderson, a professor of mathematics and a prolific historian of the university, wrote it in the years around the university's sesquicentennial. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 412 pages with illustrations and bibliographical footnotes.

  • Foundational · NC 378.756 CON A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, 1776-1799 Connor, R. D. W. · 1953

    Two-volume collection of documents on the founding and first years of the University of North Carolina, 1776 to 1799, compiled by R. D. W. Connor and published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1953. Each volume carries its own bibliography.

  • Foundational · NC 378 BAT History of the University of North Carolina Battle, Kemp P. · 1907

    Kemp Plummer Battle's two-volume history of the University of North Carolina, printed in Raleigh in 1907 and 1912. The first volume runs from the beginnings to the death of President Swain, 1789 to 1868; the second continues to 1912. Battle was himself a president of the university. Illustrated with portraits and facsimiles.

Show 6 more
  • Start here · 975.656 VIC Chapel Hill, An Illustrated History Vickers, James · 1985

    An illustrated history of Chapel Hill by James Vickers with Thomas Scism and Dixon Qualls, published in Chapel Hill by Barclay Publishers in 1985. It treats the town and the University of North Carolina together. First edition, 208 pages with illustrations, some in color, and a bibliography.

  • Foundational · NC 617.097 KAGARISE Legends and Legacies: A Look Inside : Four Decades of Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1952-1993 Kagarise, Mary Jane · 1997

    Mary Jane Kagarise's history of the Department of Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill across its first four decades, 1952 to 1993, with biographies of the surgeons on its faculty. Published by the department in 1997 in a first edition of 461 pages with illustrations, some in color. Topics include surgery and medical colleges in Chapel Hill and biography of the department's faculty.

  • Foundational · NC 378.756 SNI Light on the Hill: A History of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Snider, William D. · 1992

    William D. Snider's history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1992. It runs 370 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.

  • Foundational · NC 378.756 WIL The University of North Carolina, 1900-1930: The Making of A Modern University Wilson, Louis Round · 1957

    Louis Round Wilson's history of the University of North Carolina from 1900 to 1930, subtitled the making of a modern university, written by the librarian who served the university through most of that period. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1957, 633 pages with illustrations, it covers the growth of the campus, its schools and its faculty in three decades of expansion.

  • Start here · 796.323 CHANSKY Game Changers: Dean Smith, Charlie Scott, and the Era That Transformed A Southern College Town Chansky, Art · 2016

    Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 378.756 HOU The Light That Shines: Chapel Hill, 1912-1916 House, R. B. · 1964

    Robert Burton House, later chancellor of the University of North Carolina, recalls Chapel Hill and the campus in his student years from 1912 to 1916. A memoir published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1959, 216 pages with illustrations and portraits. Topics include Chapel Hill's social life and customs and the university's history in the twentieth century.

In the chronology

Other storylines that include this theme, earliest first. Each has its own page.

Slavery in Orange County1758–2021 · 190 events · Enslaved people worked the county’s farms, households, courts and university from the first settlements, building Old East and South Building, appearing in the 1790 tax list and the 1860 census count of more than 5,000, and passing through the courts in the Kirkland suit of 1804 and State v. Mann in 1829. Emancipation in 1865 freed about 6,000 people; the recovery of their graves and names, from Margaret Lane Cemetery to the university’s list of 119, has continued since 1987. The end of the Civil War in Orange County, 1865April 1865 · 31 events · In April 1865 David L. Swain and William A. Graham pressed for peace from Hillsborough as Johnston's army fell back through the county. Wheeler's cavalry fought Union pursuers at New Hope Creek on April 14, Union troops occupied Chapel Hill on April 17 under orders to protect the university, and Sherman and Johnston met at the Bennitt farm on the Hillsborough road, then in Orange County, where Johnston surrendered on April 26. Segregation and access to medical care1901–1965 · 15 events · Black patients in the county went to Durham’s Lincoln Hospital from 1901, well-baby clinics were held separately in the 1940s, and the new hospitals of the 1950s opened with separate wards. UNC admitted its first Black medical student in 1951, the NAACP picketed Memorial Hospital in 1963, and the hospital ended racial segregation in 1965. Orange County in the First World War, 1917–19191917–1919 · 84 events · Orange County organized for the war in 1917. A county Red Cross chapter under John W. Graham, with branches and auxiliaries in Chapel Hill, Hillsborough, rural communities and Black churches, knitted for soldiers and shipped relief clothing; women's committees sold Liberty bonds; and the university's students drilled and in 1918 came under the Students' Army Training Corps. The county's war record lists 23 Orange County servicemen who died. UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer1924 to present · 32 events · National titles won by Carolina teams other than women's soccer: the 1924 basketball team's later Helms recognition, men's basketball's six NCAA championships from 1957, women's basketball in 1994, and the field hockey, lacrosse, men's soccer and women's tennis titles since 1981. The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–19641963 to 1964 · 39 events · Marches, sit-ins and arrests over segregated businesses from 1963 into 1964, the aldermen's refusal of a public accommodations ordinance, the Holy Week fast, and the Watts Restaurant protests and the Klopfer speedy-trial case that grew out of them.
Show all 10 storylines
Wall speeches at the campus line, 19661966–2011 · 19 events · In 1966 the trustees barred Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker from the campus under the Speaker Ban law, so each spoke to students across the stone wall at McCorkle Place from the Franklin Street sidewalk. Students and the two speakers sued in Dickson v. Sitterson, a federal court struck the law down in 1968, and a marker went up at the wall in 2011. Health care across language and immigration1967–2024 · 13 events · From the student-run SHAC clinic of 1967 to UNC’s interpreter services, the CAMPOS program and the Center for Latino Health of 2008, care for the county’s newcomers has grown with its languages, and the health department was serving clients in almost 20 languages by 2014. El Futuro’s bilingual mental health work in Carrboro and the refugee wellness program of 2015 carry it on. UNC women’s soccer national dynasty1981 to present · 27 events · Anson Dorrance, the program's head coach from its first varsity season in 1979 through 2023, led the Tar Heels to the 1981 AIAW national title and 21 NCAA titles, and his successor Damon Nahas added the 2024 NCAA title, for 23 national championships in all through the 2025 season. UNC won 22 of the 43 NCAA tournaments held from 1982 through 2024, and its teams went 103 consecutive games without a loss from 1986 to 1990. COVID-19 in Orange County, 2020–20222020 to 2022 · 32 events · From the first cases in March 2020 to the last emergency measures in 2022: closures, remote school, the health department's response, mutual aid, and the pandemic's unequal weight.

Dated events connected with this theme: twelve of 2,856, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 2,856 dated events in the chronology →

  1. George Moses Horton begins selling poems to UNC students By about age twenty, George Moses Horton, enslaved on a Chatham County farm, was carrying fruit to the UNC campus on Sundays, and students began paying him to compose love poems and acrostics. His first printed poem appeared in April 1829, the year The Hope of Liberty was published.Search the index · Documenting the American South: Richard Walser, George Moses Horton, 1798?-ca. 1880 (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography)
  2. UNC reopens The university resumed classes on Monday, September 6, 1875, after more than four years closed, with Charles Phillips as chairman of the faculty, and held a public celebration on September 15. Kemp P. Battle, then secretary of the trustees, was elected president in 1876. People: Kemp Plummer Battle, Charles PhillipsUNC Libraries, History on the Hill: Chronological List of Events
  3. Sallie Walker Stockard becomes UNC's first woman graduate Sallie Walker Stockard, a Guilford College graduate, entered UNC's senior class in the fall of 1897, the first year the university admitted women. She became the first woman to graduate from UNC when the class of 1898 received its degrees on June 1, 1898, and she earned a master's degree there in 1900. People: Sallie Walker StockardSearch the index · DigitalNC: Charlotte Daily Observer, June 1, 1898, page 4 (Chapel Hill, May 31)
  4. The Carolina Playmakers are organized Frederick H. Koch organized the Carolina Playmakers at UNC. People: Frederick H. KochUNC A to Z: Carolina Playmakers
  5. Influenza epidemic strikes Chapel Hill Spanish influenza swept the University in early October 1918, putting the campus and its student soldiers under a three-week quarantine. By October 23 about 300 students had been ill and three had died, and President Edward Kidder Graham died of influenza and pneumonia on October 26. People: Edward Kidder GrahamDigitalNC: The Tar Heel, October 23, 1918, page 1
  6. The University of North Carolina Press is founded On June 12, 1922, university librarian Louis Round Wilson, nine other faculty members and three trustees founded the University of North Carolina Press, the first university press in the South. Its first book, William C. Coker's study of water molds, appeared in 1923, and William T. Couch became director in 1932. People: William T. Couch, Louis Round WilsonUNC Research: Local Ink, Inc. (July 20, 2020)
  7. The Carolina Inn is built John Sprunt Hill built the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill. People: John Sprunt HillSearch the index · NCpedia
  8. The Navy B-1 Band serves at Chapel Hill The B-1 Band, 44 Black musicians sworn in at Raleigh on May 27, 1942 as the first African Americans to serve in the Navy at general rank, played for the Navy Pre-Flight School at UNC from July 1942 to April 1944. Barred from campus housing, they lived in the new Black community center on Roberson Street, now the Hargraves Center.Search the index · UNC-Chapel Hill: Pioneers of integration (May 25, 2017)
  9. Morehead Planetarium is dedicated Morehead Planetarium was dedicated at UNC on May 10, 1949. People: John Motley Morehead IIISearch the index · Morehead Planetarium
  10. North Carolina Memorial Hospital opens North Carolina Memorial Hospital opened to patients on Tuesday, September 2, 1952, without a formal ceremony, as the core of the new University Medical Center. Its opening allowed the UNC School of Medicine to grow from a two-year program into a four-year school.DigitalNC: Chapel Hill Weekly, September 5, 1952, p. 1
  11. WUNC-TV begins broadcasting WUNC-TV began broadcasting from Chapel Hill on January 8, 1955.Search the index · PBS North Carolina
  12. UNC men’s basketball wins the 1957 NCAA national championship UNC defeated Kansas, 54–53 in triple overtime, to win the national title. People: Frank McGuireSearch the index · NCAA championship history: Division I men’s basketball

See all 2,856 dated events in the chronology →

Places in this theme

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 81 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

Show 93 more

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Resources picked for this theme, each with a note on what it holds.

Background 24

Show all 24

National Register files 7

Show all 7

Records of the time 6

Show all 6

Collections and databases 8

Show all 8

Local help

Background reading at OCPL

Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this theme; they may not discuss the Orange County theme directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Descendants of Matthew McCauley Neville, David Lindsay · 2001 Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: McCauley family; Neville family; Lloyd family OCPL call number: NC 929.209 NEV
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Essays on William Chambers Coker, Passionate Botanist Joslin, Mary Coker · 2003

    Mary Coker Joslin's essays on her uncle, William Chambers Coker (1872 to 1953), the University of North Carolina botanist who began the Coker Arboretum in Chapel Hill in 1903 and chaired the botany department for 36 years. She presents him as scientist, teacher, landscape designer and editor. Published in Chapel Hill by the Botanical Garden Foundation in 2003, the arboretum's centennial year, with drawings by Sandra Brooks-Mathers and eight pages of plates.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Coker, William Chambers, 1872-1953; Botanists -- North Carolina -- Biography OCPL call number: NC 580.92 JOS
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Federal Convention of 1787: North Carolina in the Great Crisis Craige, Burton · 1987

    North Carolina's part in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, told by Burton Craige (1875 to 1945) with biographical sketches of the state's delegates: William Blount, William R. Davie, Alexander Martin, Richard Dobbs Spaight and Hugh Williamson. Archibald Craige published it in 1987, the Convention's bicentennial; 200 pages with portraits, a bibliography and a folded color facsimile map in a back pocket.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: United States Constitutional Convention (1787); Constitutional history -- United States; Constitutional history -- North Carolina OCPL call number: NC 342.73 CRA
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Governor Roberts, Nancy · 1972

    Nancy Roberts wrote the text and Bruce Roberts took the photographs for this large-format book about Robert W. Scott, governor of North Carolina from 1969 to 1973. McNally and Loftin of Charlotte published it in 1972, while Scott was still in office; 141 pages.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Scott, Robert Walter, 1929-2009 OCPL call number: NC 975.604 ROB

Search the Wall Collection for related books →

Related themes

Schools & Education →Carolina Sports →Libraries, Archives & Public Memory →Health, Medicine & Care →Literature & Publishing →Buildings & Preservation →

Picture: University of North Carolina, 1797. Public domain

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026