Libraries Today: Laura Stein

A Civic Community Center

by Laura Stein

Senior Librarian, New York Public Library

Laura Stein, MLIS has been a clerk, materials selector, director, and, most recently, Senior Adult Librarian with New York Public Library. For the past 6 years she has brought original programming and readers advisory to the patrons of Midtown Manhattan.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) has always experimented with how programming can double as civics education. Choosing your local governance, or even participating in it, can have a positive impact on the future of your community. However, voter turnout for local elections is traditionally low. Why, if we consider something to be our "civic duty", do we shirk this responsibility?

I wanted to focus on the complication of learning about all of the races and candidates. NYC just had a Mayoral election with 13 candidates on the final ballot. Alongside that voters were also choosing a new comptroller, public advocate, district attorney, borough president, city council members, and judges. PLUS, we were just introduced to rankedchoice voting. This is overwhelming for even the savviest voter. NYC has many agencies and nonprofits working together to get people informed and the library should be a part of the conversation. After all, our realm is making information accessible.

My NYPL colleagues and I had been brainstorming and trying things out before the 2020 Presidential election. We began with article discussions on hot button topics, pulling from the Opposing Viewpoints database for fair representation. This led us to working with the League of Women Voters of NYC (LWV) to put together a blog post on important election terminology. That blog post then morphed into a trivia game. Participants answered multiple choice and true or false questions and after each answer was given our expert from LWV would share some background and context to enrich the activity. Our next foray into this trivia will be for teens, hopefully working together with the schools, instilling a sense of civic duty in the next generation.

Power in Print, a civics book club was formed and implemented in 2021 by several branch libraries. The book club format allowed staff and patrons to discuss past and present issues like voter suppression, learn about NYC's history, and discuss how to get more civically involved. A list of titles was made available for simultaneous use and staff attended support sessions before their program. No library initiative is complete without a book display! Keeping book discussion and related titles, flyers for civics programs, and voting registration forms stocked in one area is essential.

We were announcing registration deadlines and early voting dates in every program and in every newsletter. If there was a way to sneak civics into existing programs, we took advantage. Don't assume all library staff have the information and desire to vote! It was also brought up at every internal meeting and continuing education webinar.

One of my favorite public programs to create was a non-partisan guide to election research. The goal of the first session was to go over the basics of registration, finding your polling site and seeing your ballot ahead of time. Online tools have come a long way and sharing these free, trustworthy resources was the priority. In the second session we dove deeper into researching the candidates. We didn't speak about particular people but rather how to go about learning their positions on important issues, past voting records, and campaign contribution history. We outlined the resources, provided a voting plan form and showed them how to use these tools. An important collaboration for this project was with a local online newspaper that was heavily covering the election and even made one of the tools that we shared. All through the library system librarians and partners were having information sessions, making themselves available to answer any questions from voters.

We hope that all our efforts brought in just a few more voters than usual, and certainly more informed voters.