Project Vote Smart recently launched an election-year pilot program with public libraries around the country that will provide their patrons with unbiased information systems and free publications about candidates and elected officials.

Supported by a generous grant from the Carnegie Foundation, Project Vote Smart can provide libraries with a wealth of free information, including the voting records, issue positions, performance evaluations, campaign finances, and biographies on over 13,000 candidates and elected officials, as well as information on voter registration and political issues.

Libraries can partner with Project Vote Smart either as a participating or sponsoring library. Partnering libraries will be provided with: special research services over the Vote Smart Web and Voter's Research Hotline, all of the publications Project Vote Smart distributes to political journalists and the public to catalogue into reference collections, and copies of the Road to Democracy Poster outlining free Project Vote Smart/Library services which are available to library patrons.

Sponsoring libraries receive all of these services plus have the opportunity to host Project Vote Smart On the Road for a two-day period. This staffed travelling exhibit is a unique interactive journey tracing the road of democracy, from the patriotic voices of our founding fathers in 1776 to the public's cries for truth from harmful rhetoric in the 1990s.

Libraries interested in participating in this pilot program or those with questions should contact Project Vote Smart's Library Service Director Whitney Wilcox at (541) 754-2746 or libraries@vote-smart.org. For more information bout Project Vote Smart visit the Web site at http://www.vote-smart.org or call the toll-free Hotline at 1-800-622-SMART.