plib was for pic18 only (which is an 8 bit mcu... the instructions are 16 bit wide but the core operates on 8 bit data)
even if plib isn't included you can always add it to your installation
anyway, i never felt the need for peripheral libraries (well with exceptions.. canbus for example, but i wrote my own, because the time needed to understand another one and see if it could do what i wanted in an efficient way would have been at least the same, plus i get to keep the same prototypes if i switch between architectures)
anyway, you can access the registers directly, they have the same name in the datasheet. for example, if you want to read the content of TMR1L (low byte of TMR1 counter) you just have to do
uint8_t x;
x = TMR1L;
and if you want to write to a peripheral register you just write to it
T1CON |= 0x01;
and of course you can access the individual bits inside the register like so
T1CONbits.T1ON = 1
(name of the bit could be different... they are doing a bit of a mess in the new parts, newer versions of peripherals using different names for bits.. ugh)
every SFR has an associated structure of the same name + "bits" for accessing the single bits in the register
TRISA <->TRISAbits
CCP1CON <-> CCP1CONbits
and so on.