Our Values, Vision, and Mission

EveryLibrary’s vision is that “Any library funding challenge anywhere should matter to every library everywhere”. Our mission is to “Build Voter Support for Libraries”. Our organizational value system is rooted in access, inclusivity, and empowerment and is expressed by being politically active about funding and policy.

EveryLibrary’s ongoing Organizational Agenda includes six key strategic priorities:

1. We will invest in local library communities that are going on the ballot to renew or extend their basic taxpayer approved funding and cultivate opportunities for librarians who want to enhance services and facilities through municipal budgets or voter-approved measures.
   
   
2. We will join and support coalitions that align with libraries' mission as institutions, promote and extend the rights and prosperity of the people our libraries serve, and protect the rights, employment, and pensions of the people who work in all types of libraries.
   
   
3. We will continue to build a unique and extensive network of Americans who believe in libraries' power to change lives and build communities and who are ready to become advocates and activists for libraries.
   
   
4. We will support the role of library boards and commissions in governing libraries, making policy, and setting budgets responsive to diverse local priorities and creating inclusive, prosperous, and vibrant communities.
   
   
5. We will continue to broaden our focus beyond Public Library funding and speak in support of School Library programs as effective solutions for some of the biggest problems facing schools and districts nationwide. We will assist our colleagues in Academic Libraries who need institutional support from their administrations and students.
   
   
6. We will be a leader and a listener in a national discussion about the role that public, academic, and school libraries have in people’s lives, and work within the profession and across civil society to find the best ways to preserve, protect, and extend everyone’s right to use libraries.
   
   

Time off to Vote Policy

EveryLibrary and the EveryLibrary Institute are committed to supporting our staff and contractors’ rights and ability to vote by providing paid time off to vote in local, state, and federal elections. Our commitment to election participation is consistent with our mission and work as the national political action committee for libraries, and a public policy think tank for libraries, respectively. We will provide 2 hours of paid time off to vote to staff who do not have time to vote before or after work on Election Day, or not able to readily use or access an absentee/ mail ballot, or vote early. We encourage our contractors and vendors, along with our colleagues in libraries and library organizations, to institute this same policy.