Protection Is Not Enough: What 2025’s Library Elections Tell Us About the Road Ahead

In a new article for Library Journal, EveryLibrary’s Executive Director John Chrastka analyzes the results of nearly 90 library funding elections held across the country in 2025, and the findings are both encouraging and cautionary.

At the highest level, the news is good. Voters continue to support their libraries. Across 87 ballot measures tracked nationwide, 80% passed. Operating referenda—those that fund or renew core services—were especially successful, with an 88% passage rate.

But the deeper story is more complex and more important for library leaders, advocates, and policymakers to understand. Voters are willing to reauthorize funding for core library services, but they are far more hesitant to authorize new funding for operations or facilities.

The 2025 election cycle reveals a clear distinction in voter behavior, including strong support for renewing existing funding, more caution and more risk around new or expanded funding, and significantly lower success rates for building and capital projects.

Building measures, including bonds for construction and major improvements, passed only 57% of the time, well below operating renewals. Renewals keep libraries open. They maintain services. They reflect strong community support.

Read the full March 24, 2026 article: "Protection, Not Expansion: Library Referenda 2025," on Library Journal 

But they do not necessarily keep pace with rising operating costs, wage pressures, collection and technology demands, and deferred maintenance or aging facilities. A pattern of repeated renewals (without growth) risks placing libraries into a long-term defensive posture of preserving services in the short term while eroding capacity over time.

The takeaway from 2025 is not that libraries are struggling at the ballot box but that public support is strong but bounded. Voters will protect what they know, but they are less certain about what libraries might become.

We encourage you to read the full analysis on Library Journal and consider how these insights apply in your community.