Friends of the Library improves education through programs

By Amanda Hickey & Mark Schulman
News Editor & Campus Life Editor

Sampson-Livermore Library strives to ensure that all patrons will have every resource available to them as they attend UNCP.

The Friends of the Library program enhances the learning experience by expanding resource materials where state allocations cannot reach.

The Friends support library collections, expand the library’s services to the community and sponsor cultural events.

The Friends of Library board has been promoting library programs and spreading education awareness since 1990. The success of their endeavors is due to donations as well as membership fees. Outside of the Library’s primary mission, to support the teaching and research programs at UNCP, it also recognizes the importance of popular books, audio-visual materials and local history collections. The Friends assist the library and gain these rewards:

•Special checkout privileges.

•Library Lines newsletter.

•Special events sponsored by the Friends of the Library.

•Advance admission to National Library Week Book Sale.

Membership fees start as low as $5 for students who desire to partake in the library’s extra amenities through the Friends of the Library.

Dr. Melton A. McLaurin, UNC Wilmington’s Randall Library Fellow and professor emeritus of history, is a man of many interests.

However, McLaurin dedicated his visit to the UNCP Sampson-Livermore Library on Oct. 27 to the North Carolina State Fair. It is the topic of his book The North Carolina State Fair: The First 150 years.

The state fair is “one of the most venerable institutions in North Carolina,” McLaurin said. “It’s one of the few institutions that draw many people.”

The fair began because the state needed a place to exhibit the area’s agriculture. The North Carolina Agricultural Society ran the fair from 1853-1925.

“By the time of the Civil War, it was already an institution,” McLaurin said.

After a few years of changing hands, the state bought the state fair and moved it to its current location in Raleigh. The real changes came in 1937 with “Doc” Dorton’s vision of the fair. Dorton envisioned the fair to be “that institution in the state that interprets to the people in the state the agricultural movement in the state,” McLaurin said. “Dorton is the father of the fair as you see it.”

Since the fair’s beginning, it haTuesday, November 8, 2005ons.

Now, the fair receives a $3 million profit just from the gate fees.

This year, The North Carolina State Fair ran from Oct. 14 through Oct. 23.

Currently, McLaurin is working on the story of the first black Marines who were stationed at Montford Point on Camp Lejeune.

They really do have an incredible story to tell and I’m excited about that,” McLaurin said.