Hello Library Advocates,

It is with a great deal of sadness that I am asking you to respond to Trump/Musk recent cuts which now are eliminating most of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. As you may know, IMLS manages a significant amount of public library funding through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) to each state. It also manages a variety of competitive grants including the Laura Bush 21^st Century Librarian grants that over the years has funded many librarian education programs, the SLIDE project (https://libslide.org) , and the Urban School Library Project that I am currently working on with the School District of Philadelphia. In a two-year IMLS planning grant we were hoping to research and develop a long-range plan to restore school librarians and library services to the 118,000 students in the District where there are only 5 school librarians and only a handful of volunteer libraries. But this is just one of many worthy (and competitive) projects funded by IMLS—projects impacting students, teachers, libraries across the nation. You can read more that IMLS does in the ALA Statement at https://www.ala.org/news/2025/03/ala-statement-white-house-assault-institute-museum-and-library-services

ACTION REQUESTED

Call your federal legislators - (202) 224-3121 for the U.S. Capitol switchboard.

Or, go to https://action.everylibrary.org/emailreps to send emails. Edit the message to tell your federal legislators how important federal funding for libraries is. Here are some talking points you can include (although more can be found at https://www.ala.org/news/2025/03/ala-statement-white-house-assault-institute-museum-and-library-services)

·         Our nation’s 125,000 public, school, academic and special libraries only receive 0.003% of the federal budget for programs and services used by more than 1.2 billion people every year.

·         Support education and training programs for people seeking to become librarians

·         Award competitive grants to impact library services for our neediest student and community populations.

Thank you for your support of libraries. Deb

“Libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information.” Barack Obama