The mission of the Library is to provide all citizens with the greatest return on taxpayer investment by:

• Opening doors to a world of information
• Transforming information into knowledge
• Promoting reading and literacy
• Contributing to personal enrichment
• Facilitating public discourse
• Preserving the historical record of the Lower Cape Fear
• Providing exposure to a diversity of cultures
• Enhancing individual and collective economic growth

The Library is a department of New Hanover County government administered by the Library Director with the advice of a Library Advisory Board appointed by the New Hanover Board of County Commissioners.