Hazel W. Guilford Memorial Library is located at 524 Main Street, Aurora North Carolina. Housed in a building built in 1928, the Hazel W. Guilford Memorial Library building is owned and maintained by the Town of Aurora. This is the third library location since the Town of Aurora has offered a library.
Donated in the early 1980s by the Guilford Family, the Hazel W. Guilford Memorial Library was named after the first librarian that served the Aurora community-Hazel W. Guilford. Originally, the building served as the Guilford Market and Dry goods store. Until flooded by Hurricane Irene in 2011, you could experience the nostalgia of the original Market floors slanting to the Meat room and the original meat locker that was on the premises. Antique fixtures used in the original store, such as a sausage press and a coffee grinder can still be seen in the library today.
After the 2011 flooding, the Town of Aurora renovated the building to an open floor plan, levelling the floors and creating a break room and an ADA compliant bathroom.
Hazel W. Guilford Memorial Library offers comfortable leisure furniture for reading/study nooks, along with a variety of reading material to enjoy. Laptop users are provided with tables and outlets for easy access. There are 8 computers, a scanner, and both a black and white and color copier available for public use.
We are an Ecoexplore Loan Spot (sponsored by the NC Arboretum) with backpacks available for checkout. The backpacks include a trail camera with SD card, Kidnoculars, Bugnoculars, magnifying lens, insect net and a bird call. Along with available backpacks, there is a wildlife viewing area located right beside the library. For more information about the Ecoexplore program please visit https://www.ecoexplore.net/.
Hazel W. Guilford Memorial Library is located about 0.5 mile from the marina, and we are proud to partner with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission as a Tackle Loaner site by offering fishing poles available for checkout. Along with fishing poles, adaptive gear is also available. For more information on this program please visit https://www.ncwildlife.org/fishing/fishing-programs/tackle-loaner-program-tlp.
Hazel W. Guilford Memorial Library offers cooking classes for various ages on various topics with a mobile teaching kitchen that was received with a grant from the State Library of North Carolina.
Hazel W. Guilford Memorial Library also offers Citizen Science kits for check out. The three types of kits available are Bird watching, Observing Pollinators and Globe Observer: Trees.
The Bird watching kit includes 1 book, 1 bird journal, a monocular telescope for smartphone with a tripod and a cell phone grip, a bird call, a pair of binoculars with case, a 5 in 1 phone camera lens kit, and a field notebook all stored in a clear storage bag.
The Pollinator kit includes 2 identifying guides, a pair of binoculars with case, a field notebook, a stopwatch and a field notebook in a clear storage bag.
Globe Observer: Trees includes 2 identifying guides, a circumference tape measure and a field notebook in a clear storage bag.
Kits are available for checkout for a three week period.