Real life Pawnee: Evansville library in running for Leslie Knope award

Evansville is pretty much Pawnee, Indiana, the fictitious Hoosier city in the NBC show "Parks and Recreation."

So it would make sense the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library is on the shortlist for the Leslie B. Knope trophy and a chance to call itself the best library in the country.

"Parks and Recreation" focused on the not-so-mundane life of a bureaucrat in Pawnee, Indiana. The show starred Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, who had an unequivocal passion for local government.

Engaging Local Government Leaders listed more than 100 libraries from across the nation in the running for the award named after the show's protagonist. The group works to get local government to connect and engage with the public.

The voting public will pare the list down to 32 libraries. Those libraries will then go up against one another in a bracket-style tournament through February. EVPL officials asked for votes Wednesday to get them in the top 32 tournament.

Voting is open on the Engaging Local Government Leaders website now. Voting for this round ends Friday.

The organization focused on city halls last year with Peoria City Hall in Illinois taking top honor. This year, the group wants to find the best library.

Leslie Knope loved local government but loathed libraries. She called librarians "punk- book jockeys" and a "diabolical, ruthless bunch of bureaucrats" who are like a "biker gang but instead of shotguns and crystal meth, they use political savvy and shhh-ing."

"The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They're mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them dangerous," she said on the show.

The folks at Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library probably aren't that bad. EVPL has eight locations in the city, $20.5 million budget in 2018 and loans out its huge catalog and services for free. It first opened January 1913.

Where in Indiana is Pawnee actually located? In season three, Knope is going through a list of Pawnee's old town slogans, which included, "Pawnee: The Akron of Southwest Indiana." Pawnee also has an obesity problem, an empty lot that city bureaucrats want to become a park and a better-off neighboring city. If that's not Evansville, then, well, what is?

Follow Zach Evans on Twitter at @ecpZachEvans.