Editorial: Reverse ruinous cuts to federal library program

By The Herald Editorial Board

The Trump administration, in seeking to shutter the Institute of Museum and Library Services — which would include the layoffs or furloughs of some 70 federal workers and end grants to all 50 states — will save U.S. taxpayers about $295 million a year.

As a percentage of the federal budget that figure amounts to less than 0.01 percent of federal spending. Divided among the population, it would amount to 87 cents from each American.

What we’re you getting for your 87 cents?

The Institute of Museum and Library Services, created by Congress in 1996 — although its work was handled by other government agencies decades further back — provides financial support to numerous educational and cultural institutions, including public, school and academic libraries and art, science and history museums and more, helping those public institutions serve their communities.

State, local impacts: For Washington state, its most recent share of funding — $3.9 million — administered by the Washington State Library and the Office of the Secretary of State, provides support to libraries and museums throughout Washington, pays for training programs, staffs libraries in the state’s correctional and mental health facilities and supports regional libraries of Braille and talking book programs.

Neither the Everett Public Library system nor Sno-Isle Libraries have current direct grants through the federal program, but they both benefited directly in past years, and still count on the support provided through the state for training, internet access equipment and more.

Eric Howard, who started as executive director for Sno-Isle Libraries’ system of 23 community libraries in Snohomish and Island counties last fall, said the loss of the IMLS’s funding and support will be noticeable.

“It’s an ecosystem that allows us as library leaders to learn. They help establish best practices, they provide funding to create innovation,” he said in a recent interview.

Through conferences, training and other learning opportunities, library staff can learn of recent innovations, practices and ideas that they can apply at their libraries.

“Ultimately, what is a library? It’s a learning institution,” he said.

Abigail Cooley, Everett Public Library director, told The Herald last week that previously funded equipment to upgrade the library’s internet service was expected to be completed with a $30,000 grant that could now be in jeopardy.

Without that funding, she said, a more expensive substitution might have to be made, meaning a loss of funding for other programs.

“On a local level, we’re experiencing budget reductions, and we know the state doesn’t have the capacity either. The state is in a challenging and difficult budget cycle as well,” she said. “We don’t have that funding locally to be able to supplement those funds.”

No easy fix: The loss of $3.9 million in annual funding, along with other anticipated grants, is not an amount of support that the state can easily replace.

The loss of federal funding comes at a time of broader budget uncertainty as state lawmakers confront a gap between expected revenue and previously planned spending in the tens of billions of dollars over the next four years.

Adding to those potential losses, said Randy Bolerjack, deputy for Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, whose office oversees the state library system, is reduced revenue that the state library receives from recording fees on home sales and refinancing, which have fallen with a quiet housing market.

On top of the loss of federal funds, Bolerjack said, the state’s library system was already bracing for layoffs of staff under the proposed House budget and even greater cuts under the Senate’s budget.

“So, to the comparatively simple question of, can the state back-fill this? No,” he said.

Sara Jones, the state librarian, who administered the IMLS grants for her program, knows professionally some of the 70 federal staffers terminated or put on leave.

“It was really tragic to watch, because they were trying so hard to do whatever was necessary, to just try to keep this important work moving,” she said. “And they were more concerned about us than they were about themselves. It’s hard to see the vilification of public servants.”

The loss of federal support also jeopardizes the work of 32 state library employees. The promise and past consistency of federal funding has allowed library systems like Washington state’s to budget and plan for its existing programs.

“As far as we know, they will not pay us another dime we’ve encumbered as of April 1,” Jones said.

A puzzling political fight: One program that could be lost to the IMLS cuts, Jones said, was championed by former First Lady Laura Bush, who studied and was employed as a librarian. The IMLS’s 21st Century Librarian Program, named for her, offered student aid and training for librarians. Jones estimated that over the past 20 years, it helped thousands of people get master’s degrees in library science, and was crucial in staffing libraries in smaller communities in all 50 states.

Jones — who before she was named as the state librarian here in 2021, served the same role in Nevada and has worked in libraries in California and Texas — is puzzled by the Trump administration’s claim that the action to fire staff and end funding was being taken to “restore focus on patriotism, ensuring we preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations.”

Nothing about the IMLS’s work in particular and about libraries in general, Jones said, had encouraged a red state-blue state ideological divide.

“It’s just kind of sickening and devalues the fact that this really isn’t and shouldn’t be viewed in a partisan manner,” she said.

Challenges filed: Attorneys general for 21 states, including Washington state’s Nick Brown, have filed suit against the Trump administration to stop the dismantling of the federal agency, arguing that the actions — ordered by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — were illegal because they were undertaken without congressional approval. The grants now being withheld had already been allocated by Congress.

The American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have filed a separate legal challenge, seeking a temporary injunction against further actions to close the agency, arguing that the cuts have already caused “irreparable harm.”

These cuts have not been unique. The Trump administration has launched equally puzzling and damaging attacks against other cultural and educational agencies and programs, including the National Endowment for the Humanities. A separate executive order signed by Trump accuses the Smithsonian Institution — without specific citations — of falling “under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.”

Few would argue with legitimate and considered reviews of spending for a long list of federal agencies. But the actions now being taken against a range of such programs — regarding education, the arts, history, science, health, consumer protection, foreign aid, climate change, poverty relief, disaster response and aid and more — are being administered with a cudgel and not a scalpel. And without opportunity for review and comment, not by Congress and not by everyday Americans.

Carnegie’s cradle: Andrew Carnegie, the American businessman and philanthropist, built more than 2,500 Carnegie libraries across the country and the globe between 1883 and 1929. He spent much of his wealth in the endeavor because he knew public libraries were key to community development, allowing the opportunity to educate citizens and improve society.

“There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”

One one-hundredth of 1 percent of the federal budget should seem a bargain to facilitate the work of a cradle of democracy.

”I always say libraries are extremely frugal and thrifty. And we do a lot with a little,” Everett librarian Cooley said. “To take away the little that we do have will have detrimental impacts on everybody.”