E-books are on the line as Congress considers future of library funding; USA TODAY, July 29, 2025

 Sarah D. Wire, USA TODAY ; E-books are on the line as Congress considers future of library funding

[Kip Currier: Why is it okay for Trump and members of the GOP to secretly fund nearly a billion dollars to retrofit a Qatari plane, but it's not okay with them for public libraries to continue to receive IMLS grants that provide access to books, summer reading programs, and services that promote literacy and educated work forces? 

There's something fundamentally unethical -- and adverse to the common good -- about supporting measures that give billionaires more and more money, while cutting funds to museums and libraries that improve the lives of millions of Americans every day.

If you care about reading, education, libraries, and museums, let your legislators know NOW!]

[Excerpt]

"States' libraries to lose as much as half their funding

The Institute for Museum and Library Services, a tiny, little-known federal agency, provides grants to states that account for 30% to 50% of state library budgets, according to the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies.

For decades it has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funds through grants to state libraries in all 50 states and Washington, DC, and to library, museum and archives programs. It serves 35,000 museums and 123,000 libraries across the country, according to its website.

The impact of losing the money will be different in each state because each spends its portion of the funding differently.

Some will have to fire staff and end tutoring and summer reading programs. Others will cut access to electronic databases, end intra-library loans or reduce access to books for the deaf and blind. Many will have to stop providing internet service for rural libraries or e-book access statewide.

With the expectation that Congress won't buck Trump and fund the museum and library services institute, the future of these backbone "compassionate" library services is now under discussion across the nation, said John Chrastka, founder of EveryLibrary, a nonprofit that organizes grassroot campaigns for library funding and blocking book bans."

Judge says administration can dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services; AP, June 6, 2025

AP; Judge says administration can dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services

"A federal judge on Friday denied a request by the American Library Association to halt the Trump administration’s further dismantling of an agency that funds and promotes libraries across the country, saying that recent court decisions suggested his court lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter. 

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon had previously agreed to temporarily block the Republican administration, saying that plaintiffs were likely to show that Trump doesn’t have the legal authority to unilaterally shutter the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which was created by Congress.

But in Friday’s ruling, Leon wrote that as much as the “Court laments the Executive Branch’s efforts to cut off this lifeline for libraries and museums,” recent court decisions suggested that the case should be heard in a separate court dedicated to contractual claims."

New Federal Rules Aim to Speed Repatriations of Native Remains and Burial Items; ProPublica, December 8, 2023

Mary Hudetz, ProPublica; New Federal Rules Aim to Speed Repatriations of Native Remains and Burial Items

"The Biden administration has revised the rules that institutions and government agencies must follow to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — a law long hampered by limited funding and the unwillingness of many museums to relinquish Indigenous remains and burial items.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold a U.S. cabinet position, said Wednesday that the regulations will “strengthen the authority and role of Indigenous communities in the repatriation process” by requiring institutions to defer more to tribes’ knowledge of their regions and histories in their decision-making about repatriations.

Thirty-three years ago, Congress passed NAGPRA to prevent grave looting and push museums to return human remains and items excavated from Native American gravesites to tribes. But the promise of repatriation that many tribal nations once saw in the law has not been fully realized, with federal data showing institutions continue to store about half of the 200,000 ancestral remains they reported holding following passage of the 1990 law.

This year, ProPublica’s Repatriation Project investigative series revealed that archaeologists and scientists at some of the nation’s top universities and museums have exploited loopholes in NAGPRA to delay or resist turning over holdings reported under the law."