Local Civics for Libraries Toolkit

Abstract

This toolkit was born out of Info 281, a Seminar in Contemporary Issues, a Civic Literacy course taught at San Jose State University iSchool. This course is taught every January at SJSU iSchool. It was created and implemented by Mary Evangeliste . It was inspired by Ms. Evangeliste’s Get Out the Vote work in Arizona. It was also informed by the work of EveryLibrary, an advocacy organization that aids public, school, and college libraries in maintaining or increasing budgets. This led to reading executive director John Chrastka book Before the Ballot: Building Political Support for Library Funding. This title and Mary’s Get Out the Vote work in Tucson, Arizona, birthed Information 281-Civic Literacy.

Mary saw firsthand how working on local elections can move the needle on vital issues. Investing in electing city council members and mayors can significantly affect the public school, transportation, and library budgets.

There are immediate threats to public library budgets and collections. The news stories of declining library budgets and an increased call for book bans are too numerous to mention. But we are not helpless. We can inform ourselves what elected or appointed officials control our local budgets. We can attend library board meetings. We can run for the board.

In general, this toolkit is a call to action to start to future-proof our library budgets by calling upon Librarians to monitor their local public library budget and get to know and build a relationship with the officials who control it. We can also future-proof democracy by investing in local candidates who share our values. Usually, these local candidates go on to run for State offices and then Federal offices. By supporting local candidates, we can create a pipeline of candidates that we are proud to elect to the state office in ten years and the federal office in twenty.