package Mylibrary;
use strict;
use DBI;

my $database="somedb:localhost";
my $username="username";
my $password="password";

sub connect
{
    my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:$database", 
                           "$username","$password")
              or error_fatal("blah");
    return $dbh;
}

sub get_current_vote
{
    my ($dbh) = @_;
          # if we're not connected (or weren't passed
          # a connection), connect
    $dbh ||= connect();

    my $sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT current_vote FROM 
                    vote_count;");    
    $sth->execute() or die $dbh->errstr();

    my $current_vote = ($sth->fetchrow_array())[0];
    return $current_vote;
} 

1;

##</code><code>##

# my funky script
use strict;
use DBI;
use Mylibrary;

   # connect to library:
my $dbh = Mylibrary::connect();
   # get current vote:
my $current_vote = Mylibrary::get_current_vote($dbh);

##</code><code>##

# my funky script
use strict;
use DBI;
use lib '/path/to/my/library/';
use Mylibrary;