It’s a challenging time here in the United States, and wading into the current political firestorm is not something I enjoy or choose to do if I can avoid it.
I am, however, a huge fan of my local library and use its services to feed by passion for reading and learning. This past week our local library posted the following notice.
An executive order issued Friday, March 14th, 2025 calls for the reduction and elimination of functions of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) which is an independent federal agency that supports libraries and museums in all 50 states and U.S. territories. This decision will greatly impact all Granite State residents.
The New Hampshire State Library currently has $1.5 million of IMLS money to fund its interlibrary loan program (ILL), as well as the online catalog and van service to support it. In 2024, Our Public Library loaned out 1,546 items to other libraries using the ILL service, and borrowed 2,263 items from other libraries to support the needs of our patrons.
The State Library also uses IMLS money to provide you with Talking Book services and Libby (Overdrive), the eBook, audiobook, and digital magazine platform. In 2024, Dover Public Library patrons borrowed 59,988 digital titles from Libby.
Elimination of this funding will dramatically affect the above-mentioned services that we currently provide, crippling the collaboration among New Hampshire libraries and drastically reducing patron access to library services.
If you would like read the executive order, please check out https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/continuing-the-reduction-of-the-federal-bureaucracy/.
If you would also like your opinion recorded, you can send a message here on the American Library Association website.
I am closing comments because my sole purpose in posting this is for any person who values and utilizes their local library and is unaware of the issue.
Note: Yesterday, March 25, 2025, our NH representatives in Concord announced they were closing our first in the nation state library. Within 24 hours, residents expressed such opposition that they took it off the table. I wouldn’t have imagined that holding on to our history and having the ability to access books and other learning materials would be such a struggle. My good friend, Dan, at NoFacilities, had a wonderful quote by David McCullough today, and it included this fact: “During the worst of the Depression not one public library closed their doors.”
NewEnglandGardenAndThread 