Now located in the old Guyra Shire Council building, Guyra Library has turned the page on its 70^th birthday and celebrated with tea, cake and a visit from the NSW Governor, David Hurley.

Opening in 1947, its first librarian was Mrs Rixon, who boarded with her grandmother and was remembered by the community as a stern and serious woman.

A stark contrast to current librarian Aimee Hutton – who celebrated the anniversary with her newborn son Nicholas.

Ms Hutton said in her time at the library it had become much more of a community centre.

“We have become more of a community centre, particularly in Guyra where we don’t have all of the community services that a larger town would have,” she said.

“We tend to try to take on extra things that other libraries may not, I’m on an early childhood interagency and a couple of other things and we try to keep up to date with what our community needs and where we can fill those gaps.”

A huge crowd attended the event, including members of Armidale Regional Council and local school children.

“It’s really fantastic. It just reinforces how important libraries are and it shows people that we still are valuable to our community and people still do use us,” Ms Hutton said. 

“People criticise libraries as if they’re dying out but we’re just not – our statistics are going up and it’s really great to have a chance to show people that.”

Mr Hurley addressed the crowd at the event and said communities don’t often receive messages about their strengths in the media.

“One of my most important jobs as governor when I’m out and about is to reinforce and tell them what good work they are doing and to thank them for it,” he said.

“You sustain these communities in difficult times, you’re a helping hand in a time of trouble and you’re the backbone of what this country is all about.”