This is not an April Fools. trump's fascist regime is doing everything they can to shut down our nation's libraries and museums (via Andrew Limbong at NPR):
The Institute of Museum and Library Services has placed its entire staff on administrative leave.
The IMLS is a relatively small federal agency, with around 70 employees, that awards grant funding to museums and libraries across the United States.
This month, President Trump named Keith E. Sonderling — the deputy secretary of labor — the new acting director of IMLS. This followed Trump's previous executive order shrinking seven federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
According to a statement from AFGE Local 3403, which represents IMLS workers, the agency's staff was notified by email about being placed on paid administrative leave for up to 90 days, after a "brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership." Employees had to turn in government property, and email accounts were disabled.
How, you might ask, does something at the federal level affect public libraries that are funded at the city/county/state levels?
The IMLS is an independent federal agency that provides grants to libraries and museums across the country. According to the American Library Association, the IMLS provides "the majority of federal library funds." The IMLS says it awarded $266 million in grants and research funding to cultural institutions last year. This money goes to help staff, fund maintenance and create new programs. In comparison, the projected 2025 budget for the National Endowment for the Arts was $210 million.
For instance, in 2023 the IMLS funded projects such as a workforce training program, including internships, at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Florida, a pilot program in Iowa to help library staff address patrons' psychological needs and basic library functions (books, computers, internet) for various Native American tribes. You can find programs that the IMLS has funded to libraries and museums in your state through its dashboard.
That amount of $266 million is a blip in the overall federal budget. It's not wasteful or distracting from other funding needs, and yet these bastards went for that - along with all the other millions in social aid that were going to our communities - because it offends them.
Think of all those field trips you did in science or history classes back in elementary, middle, and/or high school. Think of all those writing assignments that required you to research the public library for topics on countries, or science projects for the school fairs. All gone, or about to go away, because billionaires dare not let public services go to the actual public.
While most of us are paying taxes at the state and county levels to pay for public services like libraries and museums, it's often not enough - especially in Republican-controlled states that try to keep their tax rates on property or income as low as possible to appease the Club For Greed types - to cover large-scale services for summer reading programs in low-income counties or to maintain local museums that promote ecology, history, or other sciences.
Cutting back on IMLS funding - shutting it all down like this - is going to force states and counties to either increase their own tax rates - which some of them can't do without overcoming local partisan anger - or cut services which is the path of least resistance for most local governments.
We are getting punished by ignorant, angry partisan leadership that wants the majority of us in poorer counties and states to sink deeper into ignorance and anger of our own.
Goddamn trump. Goddamn the greedheads like Elon Musk and the anti-government assholes who've been railing against our nation's long-standing efforts to provide public services to our communities.
As a librarian, this hurts me not just in the pocketbook - I dread how this is going to gut some of our state funding that supplements our county money - but in my soul. Providing library services - reading, literacy, entertainment, computer tutorials and one-on-one help - defines who I am as a person in my town, in my county, in my world.
And it's only going to get worse from here.
What the hell, America. For the LOVE OF GOD and for the LOVE OF YOUR COMMUNITIES and your families, defend your local libraries! Defend your right to read, to learn, to enlighten yourselves!
