Caitlyn Boland,  Assistant Director, Butler Area Public Library

written by Caitlyn Boland,

With election day right around the corner, libraries are a perfect place for people to get the information they need in order to make an educated decision about issues and events affecting their lives. Here are some ideas your library can use to encourage an informed and educated vote by community members on November 4th:

• Create a voter information area in your library. Include resource lists, issues guides, possible library materials, voter registration materials, ballots and voter guides.
• Post links to election resources on your library’s website. You can find a lot of valuable resources on the Internet Public Library website. The com website is also a helpul resource to pull information from. It even provides a quiz to take to help people who don’t stay on top of politics to figure out which presidential candidate they might side with based on their own views and how strongly they feel about each issue.
• Host an event for your community to watch a campaign debate on TV. Recent debates are available for free online.
• Lead a discussion group on issues addressed during a debate.
• Host a movie night by showing a film about American politics. You could follow it up with a discussion. Click here for just one of many film lists available or go to http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=123153&page=1.
• Invite a professor or public official to talk about voting, the election process and related issues. He or she could run a Q & A session as well.
• Host a mock debate and mock election program for teens. This could be one program or a series to encourage and educate future voters.
• Run a mock election for kids where their favorite storybook character could rule the library. This could tie is in with one or more storytimes and become a fun and interactive way for children to learn about how elections work.

Does your library have a great way to provide election day literacy? We’d love to know!