By Aspen Coriz-Romero
Growing up as an avid reader, I loved trips with my mom to our local library. It also served as a community space where I attended many birthday parties and baby showers to celebrate our neighbors.
If you love your local library too, you’ll want to listen up.
A few weeks ago, President Trump issued an executive order calling for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), adding to a growing list of illegal efforts to bypass Congress and abolish entire government agencies. All staff at the agency were placed on administrative leave on March 31.
IMLS is an independent federal agency that provides crucial financial support to America’s 125,000 public, school, academic, and special libraries and museums nationwide.
In fiscal year 2024, Congress set aside $266.7 million for IMLS. It may sound like a big number, but that’s just 0.003 percent of the federal budget. It amounts to only about 75 cents per person. The savings will be minimal, but the costs will be huge.
Completely dissolving the agency would cancel important grants that help states support and expand library programming and services. They’d effectively disappear, creating immense financial insecurity for libraries across the country and hurting their ability to serve their communities.
Beyond carrying books and DVDs, libraries provide essential programs and resources to the people they serve. While every library is unique, offerings include: helping students with homework or research, reading and literacy programming for children of all ages, as well as English language, GED, and citizenship classes.
Many libraries also offer employment assistance for job seekers, braille or audio books for individuals with visual impairments, and bookmobile services for those who can’t get to their library. And this list is surely incomplete.
Slashing federal library funding will have devastating repercussions for libraries everywhere, with rural communities and small towns experiencing the brunt of the impact. Over 30 million Americans are served by rural library systems — and over three-fourths of public libraries serve areas with fewer than 25,000 people.
My home state of New Mexico is largely rural, with 127 public and tribal libraries. In remote and unincorporated places, libraries even offer telephone service and drinking water for residents who don’t have access to it.
Computers and high-speed internet are another library service that over 77 million Americans depend on every year. Many libraries also distribute non-partisan voter information and serve as polling stations during elections.
In recent years, libraries in the United States have come under a “culture war” assault as certain politicians and extremists try to censor books about race/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in their catalogs. The administration’s targeting of IMLS builds on this onslaught, seeking to further undermine truth and dismantle libraries as pillars of equitable access to information and opportunity.
The return on the small investments taxpayers make in libraries is enormous, including increased literacy and economic opportunities. What’s more, libraries are one of the only accessible and free gathering spaces in many communities. Two-thirds of Americans think that closing their local public libraries would hurt their communities, Pew Research found.
Our libraries deserve more support, not less. So what can you do?
Contact your legislators directly: Tell Congress to hold the line against the Trump administration and DOGE and protect this vital funding and agency.
Show up: Attend community meetings to advocate for continued funding and emphasize why libraries matter. Visit your local library — and get a card if you don’t have one already!
Speak out: Share your support online and tell your own library stories. Use hashtags like #FundLibraries or #ShowUpForLibraries and check out the American Library Association’s social media toolkit at ala.org/advocacy.
Aspen Coriz-Romero is the New Mexico Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Kathleen Duffy says
In Flagler County, Fl Library Services are one of only three main cultural places in the entire area AND it is the only one that does NOT COST residents to use. It is also our main polling place in Palm Coast, during hurricane and other disasters they provide access to the Internet for those without power for days, give information on how to contact FEMA etc. They offer programs for children encouraging reading, teens, adults and Seniors. They offer meeting spaces. To possible lose this would be tragic. For their services to be cut would be a severe loss. If it wasn’t for the library during Covid, I myself might have given up entirely.
And we are not funded at the recommended level… it has improved tremendously since I have been a resident here. I dread the thought it will go back to those days of few new books, restricted hours, etc. In fact the county should increase their support.
I go to St. Augustine for concerts, art exhibits in actual galleries, festivals and usually eat out with friends while attending those events, their library systems is supported at a highter level than ours because St. John’s County understand that culture will help their area grow.
Deborah Coffey says
The real reason for dismantling all forms of public education is that Donald Trump actually believes he is an all powerful god and therefore, he must remake all things in his image. And, what is that image? A strong White straight male (which has allowed him to become an adjudicated rapist). A man so powerful he can remake the entire global economy (but it might cost the markets a loss of $6 trillion in a few days). Actually, we would need a professional psychiatrist to diagnose all the social, delusional and mental diseases of Trump. Presently, the list seems endless as we allow this psycho to destroy a beautiful country.
Laurel says
Why is the President undermining libraries and museums? He has already told us: “I love the poorly educated.”
This DOGE crap has nothing to do with budgets. If the current administration was concerned about the budget, it would not be cutting minimal parts of it, and would not be giving the ultra wealthy tax cuts adding five trillion dollars to our debt. It is all about controlling the population. It’s about undermining the middle class. When the middle class does well, the country does well, but the middle class is hard to control. Control is the objective.
So, when are we going to stop all this destruction? I am so tired of people saying “Let’s give him a chance.” He had his chance and fucked up. Time to move along.
Marek says
Trump , DeSantis and their boot licking cronies are just afraid of the informed, culturally savvy constituency. We are the enemy.
Skibum says
The infamous idiot in the WH has publicly stated that he “loves the poorly educated”. How does one hope to manifest that philosophy into reality? By using his Sharpie to sign yet another senseless Executive Order “calling for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)”. Drumph famously is not a reader. I doubt he even was a fan of comic books when he was a child because the artistic depictions would have been more difficult than his little pea brain had the capacity to understand and follow in the story lines. The only books he likes are the ones about him, where he is made out to be a super hero in fake, fairytale fashion. To hell with reality. To hell with history. And, oh yeah… about history. He only wants Americans to hear the white supremist talking points, preferably stated simply with words that have three or less syllables or he won’t be able to understand what is being told to him, nor will be able to pronounce those talking points in subsequent maga rally speeches afterward.
Sherry says
Simple. . . Those who are not critical thinkers, and who are uneducated and weak minded are much easier to radicalize into a cult. Much easier to control in a fascist regime. This is our current situation! The gestapo is taking over! This is exactly what Maga voted for . . . the American dream is being ripped to shreds! Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. . . quickly becoming ideals of the past!
Fight! Fight! Fight! Otherwise, our democracy will be destroyed!
Pogo says
@Why?
… as if trump even knows what a library is — or does.
smh
Think it will rain?