Filling the Advocacy Gap - New Column in Library Journal

We're very happy to start a bimonthly "Advocates' Corner" column for Library Journal.

We will be covering topics on political action and libraries, running campaigns and ballot measures, and thought pieces on the places where we would like to see the change we seek happen.  Click through to "Filling the Advocacy Gap: How Millions of Dollars Are at Stake on Ballots and What We’re Doing About It" by EveryLibrary Executive Director John Chrastka.

Regardless of what The West Wing may have told us, elections are always a numbers game. Let’s say your public library serves a community of 10,000 people and you are fielding a $15 million bond measure to build a new library next November. If we run the “national average” numbers for a Congressional election cycle, you will likely have around 7,000 people of voting age in your jurisdiction. Voter registration runs as high as 60 percent for these biennial elections. However, turn out will be as low as 42 percent in a general election. If your bond measure looses by 4 percent, a not unheard of margin, you will have lost by 141 votes....

Advocates' Corner is a new series by Library Journal.  You can read columns from other great thinkers and doers like Nancy Dowd, Jeffery Smith, Jason Kramer, and Peter Pearson via http://lj.libraryjournal.com/category/advocacy/