In November, librarians cheered as the Alabama Public Library Service reversed course on changes to how it would use federal funds. Now the source of those federal funds has been targeted for elimination.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday intending to shutter seven federal agencies he deems “unnecessary,” ordering them to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
One of those seven agencies is the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which operates the Grants to States program that supplies libraries with federal funding. This program is the source of the competitive grants under the Library Services and Technology Act distributed by APLS annually.
“Read Freely Alabama urges our Congressional delegation to protect the $2.9 million in federal funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences,” Read Freely Alabama leaders said in a statement to APR Monday. “The IMLS provides critical funding that keeps our libraries thriving. Gutting this agency will leave millions of Alabamians without access to important information and resources, and will devastate rural Alabama libraries.”
The APLS has already faced local budget cuts as the Alabama Legislature voted to reduce the agency’s budget by 9 percent last year in response to controversy over the inclusion of books including LGBTQ+ or sexual themes in children’s and youth sections.
APLS typically distributes the federal funding to libraries in the APLS system through a competitive grant process, but Director Nancy Pack attempted to change course last year while libraries worked to change policies to become compliant with new state aid requirements forced by Gov. Kay Ivey.
Many librarians were not happy about that decision, and cheered when newly elected APLS Chair John Wahl led a reversal of that decision to allow the grant process to resume as normal. Wahl is also the chair of the Alabama GOP, which has long endorsed Trump.
In a statement emailed to APR Monday, the nonprofit EveryLibrary said that current obligations of IMLS should be fulfilled.
“Congress was explicit in the 2018 Museum and Library Services Act that IMLS is statutorily required by Sec. 9133 to distribute federal funding to state libraries under the Grants to States program,” the group said. “IMLS is obligated to fund all current-year and multi-year contracts, grants, awards, and agreements obligated by Congress within the federal budget, including the FY 2025 Continuing Resolution (CR) enacted on March 14.”
The executive order may not impact the current grant cycle, but would eventually leave libraries without the ability to access federal funding. Many of these grants fund the libraries’ special projects, while some rely on the grants as the only option to update technology or expand access.
The order will likely be one topic among many discussed by the APLS executive board when it meets Thursday.
