U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling, appointed acting director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services by the Trump Administration on March 20, received a welcome letter today from the National Museum and Library Services Board. In it, the 19 board members affirmed their official advisory capacity in relation to the IMLS director and their “statutory responsibility to provide advice and recommendations on the policies, programs, and interagency coordination of the Institute” and their commitment “to supporting the lawful and effective operation of the Institute.”
Sonderling’s appointment on March 20 followed a White House executive order demanding that the IMLS, among other entities, “shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.” The order, which did not address discretionary functions, also required a report “confirming full compliance with this order and explaining which components or functions of the governmental entity, if any, are statutorily required and to what extent.”
In its letter, the board characterized the IMLS’s “core statutory obligations that are not discretionary” as all programs that have been “authorized by law and funded by Congressional appropriation.” These, the letter explained, include maintaining the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, Support for Digital Literacy and Emerging Technologies program grants, National Leadership Grants for museums and libraries, and grants for Native American library services. The board noted that, according to the Museum and Library Services Act of 2018, statutory mandates of the IMLS “cannot be paused, reduced, or eliminated without violating Congressional intent and federal statute.”
The board added that the IMLS is bound by law to statutes including the National Museum of African American History and Culture Act and the National Museum of the American Latino Act. “All such statutory obligations may not be discontinued or delayed under an executive order or other executive action,” the letter noted, as the distribution of promised funds to grantees is “subject only to the availability of appropriations, not to executive discretion. Any failure to fulfill these legal obligations or to reduce staffing or program operations below the minimum required to meet statutory mandates would place the agency in noncompliance with Congressional intent.”
Organizational outcry
The board’s letter comes at a chaotic moment for the IMLS and other federal agencies. Researchers, scholars, states, and library systems across the country fear losing access to essential grants, and other executive orders targeting the representation of historically marginalized groups for erasure from federally funded programs has sown confusion at agencies dedicated to the arts and humanities. These threats have resulted in furious support from literary organizations, bracing think pieces by library experts, and statements in defense of the agency from professional associations.
Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms managing director of U.S. free expression programs at PEN America, wrote on March 21 that the federal “gutting” of the IMLS “inhibits the ability of all people to exercise their freedom to read and learn.” Speaking on behalf of PEN America, Friedman called on Congress “to ensure the IMLS remains strong, independent, and robustly funded.”
“The funding provided through IMLS supports improvements and innovation, ensures the continued operations of small and rural libraries, and helps libraries meet the specific needs of their communities,” Friedman wrote. “From access to Braille books for the blind to high-speed internet access to those in need, our libraries provide core services for our communities.” Shrinking the IMLS “will weaken our nation’s library system and undermine the essential services it provides.”
Andrew Pace, executive director of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), told PW that “every dollar awarded in IMLS’s highly competitive, merit-based process is multiplied a thousandfold by the hard work of librarians and museum experts.” The IMLS, Pace explained, exists to help libraries and museums build programming, create professional development opportunities, and preserve the scholarly and cultural record. “Nothing,” he added, “is more efficient than the way libraries and museums can scale access to knowledge and culture in their communities with what amounts to a very small investment by the federal government.”
Pace noted that, in August 2024, the ARL received a one-year Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant of $148,792 in support of its project “Futurescape Libraries: Mapping Possibilities for Tomorrow’s Information Hubs.” That grant is enabling the ARL and its partner, the Coalition for Networked Information, to look at how artificial intelligence is changing the research environment. While ARL has not released a public statement, Pace said it will focus on advising its members on actions they can take related to the IMLS.
In a statement, the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the ALA devoted to academic libraries, went even further. “ACRL deplores the executive order issued by the Trump administration on March 14, 2025, and acknowledges the negative impact this would have on academic and research institutions,” the organization wrote. It asserted that the “loss of IMLS funding would disproportionately harm smaller, rural, and historically underserved institutions, limiting their ability to serve their communities effectively.”
LIS perspectives
As library organizations rush to the defense of IMLS, all hands are on deck in library and information science departments nationwide. According to Anind K. Dey, dean and professor at the Information School at the University of Washington–Seattle, the iSchool presently has 11 IMLS grants in progress. Researchers, Dey explained, typically spend money first and request reimbursement from the federal granting agency later. Now, they fear collaborative efforts will vanish with an administrative keystroke.
Last week, Dey reached out to the principal investigators on the grants with the intention of collecting examples to share with the U.S. Senate and the media. Faculty members wrote back about their labs for developing open-source hardware, games they created for youth engagement, and thetools they designed to help the public recognize scams, deepfakes, and disinformation.
Stacey Wedlake, a UW research scientist working on an IMLS-funded project to fortify youth information literacy, worried that the project could “be shut down immediately, just as we are launching a series of workshops with our cohort of libraries.” Marika Cifor, a UW faculty member preserving the histories of marginalized and underrepresented communities, said that without IMLS funding, “eight public libraries, carefully selected through a national application process, will lose critical support, leaving their community archive projects unfinished or never started.”
Sandy Littletree, an iSchool assistant professor and a member of the Navajo Nation, underscored that tribal libraries and archives faced “closure or severe cuts” without IMLS’s Native American library grants. “Since most American Indian communities have little to no tax base, tribal libraries are especially sensitive to reductions in IMLS funding,” Littletree said.
“The IMLS is a tiny portion of the federal budget, but its impact is far-reaching—from the rural library in Kansas to the small children’s museum in Brooklyn,” one researcher wrote to Dey. “If we care about a public that is informed, creative, and compassionate, we have to protect one of the few federal agencies devoted to these pursuits.”
