Trump Administration Moves to Shutter Library Agency; The New York Times, March 31, 2025

 Jennifer Schuessler, The New York Times; Trump Administration Moves to Shutter Library Agency

"The future of grant programs was not immediately clear. But the American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing staff members, said in a statement that in the absence of staff all work processing applications for 2025 grants “has ended.”

“Without staff to administer the programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated,” it said.

The agency, created in 1996 and reauthorized most recently in 2018 in legislation signed by Mr. Trump, has an annual budget of nearly $290 million, larger than either the National Endowment for the Arts or the National Endowment for the Humanities. It provides funding to libraries and museums in every state and territory, with the bulk going to support essential but unglamorous functions like database systems and collections management.

Its largest program, known as Grants to States, delivers roughly $160 million annually to state library agencies, which covers one-third to one-half of their budgets, according the Chief Officers of State Library Associations, an independent group representing library officials.

Mr. Trump’s executive order prompted widespread mobilization by library and museum advocates, who issued multiple statements defending the agency and questioning the legality of moves against it. A bipartisan group of senators, including the Democrats Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, sent a letter calling on Mr. Sonderling to continue the agency’s mission."

Trump’s Mass Purge Finally Hits Museums and Libraries; The New Republic, March 31, 2025

Malcolm Ferguson, The New Republic; Trump’s Mass Purge Finally Hits Museums and Libraries

"Elon Musk and DOGE just soft-fired everyone at the federal agency that supports local libraries and museums nationwide. 

All 70 Institute of Museum and Library Services employees were sent an email on Monday placing them on an immediate paid administrative leave, according to the American Federation of Government Employees union. 

This comes just two weeks after President Trump signed an executive order calling for IMLS to be shut down, and days after DOGE operatives infiltrated the IMLS facility while purging its leadership. 

“Earlier today, the Institute of Museum and Library Services notified the entire staff that they are being placed on administrative leave immediately. The notification followed a brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership,” a statement from AFGE  read. “Employees were required to turn in all government property prior to exiting the building, and email accounts are being disabled today. Museums and libraries will no longer be able to contact IMLS staff for updates about the funding they rely upon.”

The IMLS has a $313 million annual budget and distributes taxpayer money to museums and libraries across the country. Its stated goal is to “advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development.”"

"Reading builds empathy": The case for saving America's libraries; Salon, March 30, 2025

MELANIE MCFARLAND,

Salon; "Reading builds empathy": The case for saving America's libraries

"Libraries are the nexuses of democratized access to culture, community expertise, diverse perspectives on history and the instruments that further that knowledge. They also are gathering spots and safe spaces for the vulnerable.

“People who are in library leadership, on boards, and certainly librarians even today, are not interested in limiting, shaping, prescribing how that creative and generative expression should be had,” says John Chrastka, Executive Director and founder of the non-profit advocacy organization EveryLibrary. “They're just interested in making sure that everybody's got a fair shake to get to it.”

This may be why the Trump administration is set on starving our nation’s libraries to death, or close enough to it."

Trump targets libraries and state-funded media organizations amid Voice of America’s staff cut; The Independent, March 15, 2025

Gustaf Kilander, The Independent; Trump targets libraries and state-funded media organizations amid Voice of America’s staff cut

"The Trump administration continued its gutting of the federal government on Saturday as it began making significant cuts to Voice of America and other state-operated programming supportive of democratic ideals. 

As Congress passed government funding on Friday night, Trump ordered the administration to cut back the functions of a number of agencies as much as possible in accordance with the law. One of the affected institutions was the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia, as well as Radio Marti, which broadcasts news in Spanish in Cuba. 

In an executive order signed late on Friday, Trump eviscerated a number of smaller offices and agencies that do everything from battling homelessness to funding libraries.

The order stated that the agencies and offices will see their federal grants reviewed. The grants will be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”...

The advocacy group said it “condemns this decision as a departure from the U.S.’s historic role as a defender of free information and calls on the U.S. government to restore VOA and urges Congress and the international community to take action against this unprecedented move.”...

The latest reductions are especially provocative because the Agency for Global Media is an independent agency chartered by Congress, which passed a law in 2020 limiting the power of the agency’s presidentially appointed executives. Trump has already taken several moves to gut congressionally-mandated programs, setting up a potential Supreme Court showdown over the limits of presidential power.

Trump also took aim at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an agency that supports libraries, archives, and museums in all U.S. states."

ALA, IMLS Sponsored Privacy Field Guides Launched; Library Journal, February 17, 2022

Matt Enis , Library Journal ; ALA, IMLS Sponsored Privacy Field Guides Launched

"The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in partnership with the American Library Association (ALA), recently sponsored the development and publication of a series of seven Privacy Field Guides. Designed to offer practical information and hands-on exercises for public, academic, and K–12 librarians, the seven guides cover digital security basics, how to talk about privacy with patrons, non-tech privacy, data lifecycles, privacy audits, privacy policies, and vendors and privacy.

Patron privacy—as well as consumer privacy more broadly—has been a longstanding concern within the library field, and many library-specific books, articles, workshops, and other resources are available on the topic. However, as project co-leads Bonnie Tijerina, founder of the Electronic Resources & Libraries conference and fellow at the Data & Society Institute, NY; and Erin Berman, division director, Learning Group, Alameda County Library, CA, and current chair of ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee (IFC) Privacy Subcommittee, wrote in their grant proposal: “While a plethora of information exists about how to institute privacy policies and procedures in libraries, it is difficult to navigate and hard to use.” Much of the content “is too dense and academic to be useful to frontline staff. The Privacy Advocacy Guides seek to eliminate the barriers libraries face when trying to create a privacy conscious organization.”

“We have information overload,” said Becky Yoose, founder and library data privacy consultant at LDH Consulting Services, WA, and one of the authors of the guides. “You have people who want to do something with privacy at their library, they just don’t know where to start. They don’t know which topics to start with, how to start, and more importantly, how to communicate things about privacy to coworkers, administrators, the public, partners, [or] vendors. These field guides are primarily…practical introductions into key privacy topics for all library types.”

Another author, Emily Ray, electronic resources librarian for the University of North Florida, added that many articles on privacy point out problems and troubling developments without offering practical solutions, while others that offer solutions are often targeted at an audience with technical expertise."