If you're an American and you're really scared about the Trump administration overtaking the Institute for Museum and Library Services, I'm just going to quick break down how this works on the library side from someone who has worked in libraries, made the director handbook for libraries in my system, managed archives, and continues to engage with libraries pretty actively:
-Federal funding for the bulk of libraries in the US is far less than most people think it is. This is because the majority of libraries are sustained by local and state taxes in their area.
-Typically new developments like growing stem programs, hotspot services, and adding library locations is done through federal grants. In a few select states because of how they've structured their libraries and how new their libraries are to the system, Federal grants do technically still pay for ebook services and (less frequently) day to day operations in libraries that have less foot traffic, but still serve an important role to the communities surrounding them. A few libraries do pay additional staff via federal grants, but typically core staff are funded via state and local taxes.
-There's a whole lot of reasons why libraries are funded the way that they're funded, part of it is that conservatives at one point did argue that a library should provide enough value to its community that like it is supported only by the local and State taxes, which is a valid reason.
Another argument for why libraries don't take more Federal funding that's been popping up a lot in the 2020s is that taking a significant portion of your funding on a federal level would make you more beholden to the federal government and encourage them to begin making restrictions that impact the ecosystem of libraries and what you are allowed to have on the shelves, which likely wouldn't necessarily serve your patrons. It also would basically mean that book banners would have a place to go to push their agenda wide scale.
-all this is not to say that this isn't going to hurt libraries.
This is going to hurt a lot of rural locations, independent libraries, and summer reading programs-- which are important resources for education, socialization, and just the general well-being of our nation's youth.
These programs provide an important break for parents who have months-long stretches where their kids are suddenly home all of the time and don't have the same easy social access that they had before.
I cannot put into words just how important summer reading programs are for communities, they provide so many opportunities for kids to learn and interact and foster a lifelong appreciation of reading.
Even if you have just read a hundred books to get an ice cream cone, you were reaping the emotional and social benefits of reading, we learn so many cues in communication from reading and so much empathy.
I cannot put into words how much reading impacts child development. When you teach a child to read and you teach a child to read well, you are giving them tools to communicate with the world around them-- and summer reading programs help maintain and in some cases supplement the skills that kids develop during the school year. Learning is not something that should be restricted to just 9 months of the year.
Reading programs are important programs to the development of our nation's youth!
A lot of the additional summer programming is done through grants, and while a lot of states have really expansive Grant opportunities, the federal funding cuts in other areas are likely going to result in people looking really close at what we're spending on and why.
-one of the most important things that you can do for your state libraries is continue to use their services, show that you appreciate what they offer. If you want a program to remain, you have to be an active part of it.
Most libraries are allowed to count services in patron numbers to show interest in ebook catalogues and other things, but visiting in person and using community courses when you can helps further support the existence of branch locations.
Some states are likely going to get hit harder by this than others that have larger systems, but you using and talking about your local library helps make a case to hold onto the funding they have and look into additional ways to replace federal funding.
-what is an ungodly awful part of this is that we're going to see a lot of national libraries get hit hard by this. And national/federal libraries are typically legal libraries and special topics libraries.
It's a lot of historical preservation, information about our environment and agriculture, medical research, and technology AS WELL AS collections/limited libraries that were created via federal funding to inspire diversity and inclusion. A lot of these libraries don't have bustling locations to inspire funding via foot traffic, but they do provide resources to our library ecosystem. A really important way that they do this is by making large print, braille, playaways, and other ability aids accessible via the interlibrary loan system. They even scan items that are too fragile or precious for transport so that patrons and different systems can use them.
Just running down a short list of times that national, federally funded libraries have really helped my patrons via interlibrary loan services: one of the various libraries for the deaf and blind provided me with the cds that I needed in order to allow a patron to read the next cj box book while long haul trucking, I have received copies of photographs of people's parents on reservations via interlibrary loans and using grant funding have also uploaded photos of people's family members and newspaper articles that are relevant to their family history, I've actually received sheet music for a trombone player as a result of the various music libraries , and there was a niche queer library that mailed us so many books that were requested because we didn't have access to any of the 1970s queer pulp paperbacks and a patron desperately wanted to read the books that she had seen on shelves when she was growing up but never been brave enough to check out. (The art on their covers was wonderful)
THESE ARE IMPORTANT SERVICES TO OUR LIBRARY ECOSYSTEM. We want these services and access to these collections to remain, because you never know what is going to happen to you in this life, and because people deserve the opportunity to interact with their own history and their own culture. These will be lost if these libraries are no longer funded.
SO WHAT DO WE DO?
What can you as an ordinary person do?
1. Kick up a fight and make sure that you are hounding your lawmakers the moment you so much as sniff someone trying to defund your libraries.
2. Use all the resources that you can to show that they actually matter to you and do so while understanding that because life gets busy, your usage is also advocating for other people in the community who don't currently have the time to use those resources but would appreciate them later on.
3. Make sure you're talking about libraries and what they offer to other people, a lot of people don't know what their local library has going on.
4. Take the time to volunteer and look into ways to donate not necessarily money, but your time and resources to the library. Not every library takes old books, but some that won't put your books on the shelves will put them in the library book sales. Not every library allows volunteers to shelf, but they do often allow for people to join their friends of the library organization and help raise money and come up with community events and staff them.
5. You can donate money, but I want to note with donating money, that not every library is structured the same.
Please check with your local librarian how their donations work.
I have worked at libraries in the past where we got donated money that went into the city slush fund, and are late fees also went into the city slush fund... Which was used on a road. Not a road near us, but just a road. One that actually kind of fucked a lot of people over.
We actually had to come up with a separate method of donation for monetary things that classified them as being earmarked for specific services and usage so then the city couldn't take it. Which is insane but you know.
We would take money from patrons and ask them if they wanted to go into our general fund, or if they would like it specifically to go towards the repair of our roof.
A lot of people once they realize the reason why we were asking about the repair of our roof did in fact get heated about the way that the city was treating us, but the city still fought back about whether or not we would get to hold our own donations rather than specifically earmarked ones.
Just having people know how our donation system worked and fight for us to actually hold the money that had been donated specifically to us did make a difference in the end, because suddenly we had a roof. And, you know, some people lost seats in elections.
EDIT:
-YOU CAN ALSO START A BOOK CLUB THROUGH YOUR LIBRARY, WHICH IS SO IMPORTANT!!!
Most libraries will give you a free place to meet and promote your event, you can also engage with your community and make new friends,
aaand something that's really important is that you can show your support to the books that you love.
Not only do book clubs encourage foot traffic, they help promote different niches of offers, and form lasting community bonds. Heavy book club usage has in my experience actually shaped when we had our library hours. Like to the point where we added an extra day a week because they were coming in so frequently and they had indicated that they would keep coming in with even more people if they were able to come in on the weekend.
It also allows libraries to show that our space is being used, and have like a solid number of formalized meetings that happened there and helped us exist.
You can start a book club for almost anything in most cases, though most libraries ask for a lack of profanity in the name of your organization, and if you formally affiliate with your library then most branches help clubs acquire their books at the same time and arrange resources for whatever events you have planned.
