For the April 1, 2025, Illinois Consolidated Elections, I created a voters’ guide to contested public library board elections. This wasn’t the initial plan; I intended to cover all the boards with elections. But the effort was Herculean, even with a group of dedicated volunteers, and ultimately, it wasn’t the guide’s goal. So rather than try to cover every public library election on the ballot, I focused exclusively on those elections where there were more candidates than open positions (that is, they were contested elections).

One thing worth emphasizing before diving in, though, is that the goal of this project was fact and information, not perfection or completionism. I knew from the start that I would not have information for every library in the state because Illinois is a big state with many rural communities whose information isn’t as easy to access as suburban or urban areas. Setting aside perfectionism in exchange for accuracy was crucial.

A couple of preliminary steps are worth mentioning since they will impact everything going forward. First: find out when your next library board elections will be held and plan to have your voter guide prepared a couple of weeks in advance. This will give you a personal deadline for when you need your information to be as updated as possible. You don’t want to have your guide available too early, as you’ll miss a lot of information about candidates in the weeks leading up to election day. Groups like the League of Women Voters often hold candidate forums two or three weeks before an election, and local newspapers begin publishing candidate questionnaires then, too–assuming you have local newspapers covering these municipal elections. You can learn a lot from these; providing links to recordings or articles is extremely helpful in your guide.

Then, build your timeline and project around your available time and energy. For the April 1, 2025, election, I began my work in December 2024. Though information about candidates on the ballot wouldn’t be available until late February, this gave me a lot of lead time to do some preliminary research. I did this project in addition to working full time, parenting, and other things, putting in probably 3-5 hours a week at the beginning and closer to 7 or 8 as the election got nearer. Find people to help you with some of these tasks, and/or get more local on your guide to make the lift easier. State library advocates helped me develop a school board election guide similar to Frank’s, while I put together the public library guide myself. Illinois has fewer public libraries than school districts, so this was doable.