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IMLS: you can really help with library funding! [1]

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Date: 2025-06-26

War with Iran, ICE, Medicaid cuts…. there’s so much it seems overwhelming.

The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is a small federal agency you may well have never heard of ~ but you’ve likely benefitted from. It’s the federal agency that funds libraries and museums. IMLS does lots for museums but I’m less familiar with the details for that, so I’m going to focus on what I do know ~ library funding.

TL;DR summary: library funding are the country is in danger ~ and you CAN help.

{Warning: I’ve never been accused of being short-winded, especially one topics I’m passionate about}.

U.S. libraries get their funding primarily from local sources. Depending on where you are, libraries have a range of ways they are governed. Some state have large library districts, some have federated county-level federated consortia, and some have other administrative districts that have taxing authority (which sometimes follow school district lines).

Here in New England, libraries are very municipally based. Even very small towns have their own library. For example, a small town near me, population about 1750, has a very nice library with two staff (librarian for about 30 hours a week and an assistant for about 15). When I visited that library recently, in the 45 minutes I was there around 2 p.m., around 20 people came in ~ mothers with children to choose books, teens to play a game, senior citizens to use the computers (as much of the town only has expensive satellite as an Internet provider), and a couple people who needed the high-speed Internet for work.

At the other end of the scale, Portland, Maine’s largest city, has a main library, three fairly small branches, and a bookmobile. Maine is the most rural state in the country, so Portland’s library stands out as very big.

Most of Maine’s 300 or so public libraries are part of a statewide consortium that also includes academic libraries (college/university), school libraries (K-12) and special libraries (examples: the Margaret Chase Smith library, museum libraries, hospital libraries; list here if you want to see the full range). It’s wonderful ~ I can sit at home in my small town and order books from the Maine College of Art library or the Bangor Public library and have them arrive at my local library within a week.

Maine’s public libraries are mostly either municipal departments or non-profits that have some combination of town funding, endowment, and fundraising.

Every state gets IMLS funding via population-based annual grants, with each state deciding how to spend the grants. Some state library agencies pass through the funds. Maine follows the model of the Maine State Library (MSL) funding services that all the libraries in the state can participate in. Maine’s IMLS grant for this year was about $1.6 million. IMLS’s whole budget was $313 million ~ that’s about 77 cents person per year.

What does IMLS funding provide in Maine and many other states? Interlibrary loan services, high-speed Internet at libraries, ebooks, library staff development, homebound services and database licenses.

Talking books services for the visually/physically impaired are funded through the National Library Service for the Blind, a part of the Library of Congress, but the funding for administering the program are from IMLS.

Side note: ebooks are expensive for libraries ~ much more than for individuals. The issues around ebook pricing convince that, if libraries didn’t already exist, they couldn’t be started now. Too much money out of the pockets of big corporations.

Libraries are often the backbone of communities, whether urban, suburban, rural, or tribal. Meetings spaces, books, ebooks, databases (Ancestry, encyclopedias, legal forms designed for that state, academic journals, and so much more), safe places for people who don’t feel safe elsewhere (awkward teens, victims of domestic violence, unhoused), heating/cooling centers, libraries of things (kitchen items, tools, puzzles, telescopes, even seed starters). If it will benefit a community, a library has probably done it ~ and for free to the library users.

I don’t want to slide too far into vocational awe, but the librarians I worked with, both at the libraries I’ve worked at and with larger associations, are some of the most passionate, committed people I’ve ever met. They’ve all been really committed to serving their communities, often on a budget being held together with a {fairly frayed} shoestring. Which is where IMLS funding comes in. In addition to the population-based grants, IMLS also awards grants for special projects, which covers a huge range: spaces for teleworking or telehealth, making older buildings ADA compliant, developing collections in languages other than English, children’s literacy.

IMLS funding allows libraries to offer much more than they could just on local funding. For example, given the high costs of ebooks, with IMLS funding and the statewide consortium that is funded by IMLS, my local library might be able to buy 17 ebooks.

So what can you do?

If you like libraries, whether you only get in once a year for an interesting speaker or stop by on your lunch hour a couple times a week to get a reading refill, let your representatives know.

Congress appropriated money for this fiscal year that hasn’t been distributed. After a lawsuit, some of what hadn’t been distributed has been, fortunately.

The other big issue: the congressional authorization for IMLS expires this year and Trump’s huge ugly bill essentially zeroes out IMLS ~ from $313 million to $6 million, with that amount meant to go to closing down IMLS. So when you communicate with your congressional delegations, the best messages with have two elements:

fund IMLS at least at the equivalent of this year’s $313 million for next year

vote for the reauthorization of IMLS, so that funding can continue to be distributed to benefit the congressional delegation’s residents

There’s a link below to the American Library Association’s action page.

It’s also worth contacting state and local officials about library funding. Whether IMLS is reauthorized or not, library funding from the federal level is likely to continue be in a precarious position, given that it’s on Project 2025’s list of agencies that aren’t to their liking. If your state has a rainy day fund, your state’s libraries need an umbrella.

Sources/further reading (I’m librarian; of course I’m going to give you links to stuff to read):

Press release about layoffs from abrupt ending of IMLS funding, project examples, and a breakdown of 2019 spending in Maine

What does IMLS fund in your state?

State allotment data

Local library view in April

American Library Association action page

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/26/2330249/-IMLS-you-can-really-help?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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