1. United States
2. N.Y.
3. Letter

As a constituent and ardent supporter of America’s libraries and library workers, I am contacting you frightened for the future of these vital institutions and professionals. On March 14, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order advancing the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and six other governmental entities. In doing so, the President has elected to eliminate the only federal agency dedicated to funding and serving libraries across the United States and its territories. Charged with advancing, supporting, and empowering museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development, IMLS is an essential resource hub for our nation’s over 125,000 libraries. Most critically, IMLS is the federal entity tasked with administering Grants to States and other targeted grants programs created by the Library Services & Technology Act (LSTA), itself a component of Museum and Library Services Act. New Yorkers are slated to benefit from $8.1 million in IMLS administered LSTA-related federal funding in FY 2025. Whether through funding early and adult literacy programs, summer reading programs, workforce development initiatives, aid to veterans, broadband access, or the essential administrative functions executed by the New York State Library that support our state’s 7,000 libraries and 72 library systems, the grants facilitated by IMLS affect all New Yorkers. In this way, to eliminate IMLS is to directly injure each community in our state and every resident who depends on library programs and services in their daily lives and jeopardize the continuation of the resources they rely on. Established by an act of Congress in 1996, for the last three decades IMLS has served as a testament the United States’ commitment to libraries as instruments of the common good. Its repeated reauthorizations have demonstrated non-partisan understanding that, as a nation, we must invest in libraries as community anchors that serve our shared interest in democratizing access to art, culture, and education for all people. We cannot afford to turn our back on such vital institutions now. As your constituent, I call on you to take all possible actions to defend and speak in support of IMLS. We, the users of America’s 125,000 public, school, academic, and special libraries, are counting on you.