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.
