Potential IMLS Defunding and What it Means

On March 14, 2025, you might have heard that an executive order was signed by President Trump to eliminate funding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS. Below, we'll outline what this could potentially mean.

What is IMLS?

From their website, "The mission of IMLS is to advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development."

In other words, IMLS provides non-partisan funding to museums, libraries, and other organizations, like library associations or consortiums. These grants can go directly to the museums and libraries, or they can be funneled through other organizations to suport those entities.

How will this affect the Millstadt Library?

If IMLS becomes defunct, the Millstadt Library and many similar libraries will not be directly affected. The majority of our funding comes from property taxes - so the money you pay for your library stays at your library and in your community.

That said, it could directly affect services available.

The Millstadt Library is a proud member of the Illinois Heartland Library System, or IHLS. IHLS is a library consortium that works with over 500 libraries in Mid-Southern Illinois and funds the organization, Sharing Heartland's Available Resources Equally, or SHARE, which allows Millstadt Library to share its collection with other libraries and allows your library card to work at all of those Public Libraries that are connected.

IHLS is also in charge of delivery that we get five times a week, directly bringing items to you from libraries across the state. Without IHLS, we would not have the amazing access we have to millions of items. IHLS also enables the Millstadt Library to have deep savings on other resources, like the CloudLibrary where patrons have access to e-books and audio books and Biblio+ where patrons have access to a streaming service. They also provide other vendor discounts, networking, and additional services that allow our library to be the best it can be.

What could elimination of IMLS funding mean?

There are a lot of "ifs" about this, but it's important to know what this could mean. It means that directly for libraries like ours in Illinois that the $5.7 million that the Illinois State Library receives from IMLS funding and the Library and Technology Service Act could be non-existant. This means programs like collection sharing (IHLS and the northern version called RAILS,) history preservation grants, some programming, and professional development (like Director's University and Director's University 2.0 that your Millstadt Library director attended) would be unavailable. You can see how funding was used in 2024 here.

Additionally, this funding affects Museums. The American Alliance of Museums has a wonderful write up explaining how this affects museums. Many museums are not tax-supported and rely on grant funding to operate and staff their museums.

Where do we stand now?

Funding has already been approved for the FY2025 federal budget so everything will be fully funded until the end of September 2025. However, we also need to make sure that the Museum and Library Services Act that was enacted in 1996 continues to be reauthorized in September.

Now is the time to help advocate to ensure funding before we have to find alternatives. It is also important to mention that the new IMLS Acting Director, Keith E. Sonderling, has stated that, "we will revitalize IMLS and restore focus on patriotism, ensuring we preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations."

The beauty of libraries and museums is that we share information by all and for all. We want to ensure that the American values that are shared are of the most important core value, Freedom. Freedom to share information and educate everyone about all issues from all sides.

How can you help?

Funding for IMLS is imperative in creating and sustaining the nation and world that our people deserve to live in.

• You can sign the EveryLibrary petition and then continue to send an email (as prompted.)

• You can send a message to Senators Durbin and Duckworth and your Member of Congress (once you enter your address, it will automatically populate your Congress Member.)

• To find all of your Elected Officials, visit here.

• You can email Senator Belt here.

• You can email State Representative Kevin Schmidt at schmidt@ilhousegop.org

• See the bottom of this article for a possible message template

Additional Resources

• American Library Association’s FAQ (ALA) 

• American Alliance of Museums (AAM) 

• Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA)

• EveryLibrary and the EveryLibrary Institute

Template for Message

Dear {Recipient},

As you are aware, on March 14, 2025, an executive order was signed by President Trump to eliminate funding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS.

I am writing to you today to express my support for federal library funding and stand against President Trump's Executive Order against the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and to let you know what IMLS funding looks like for small libraries in Southern Illinois and the Metro East.

IMLS funds target each community's unique needs, such as improving internet access to rural areas, supporting tribal libraries, ensuring libraries can offer interlibrary loan, programs for Veterans, businesses, and entrepreneurs and so much more.

The Millstadt Library is a proud member of the Illinois Heartland Library System, or IHLS. IHLS is a library consortium that works with over 500 libraries in Mid-Southern Illinois and funds the organization, Sharing Heartland's Available Resources Equally, or SHARE, which allows Millstadt Library to share its collection with other libraries and allows your library card to work at all of those Public Libraries that are connected. IHLS is also in charge of delivery that we get five times a week, directly bringing items to you from libraries across the state.

Without IHLS, we would not have the amazing access we have to millions of items. IHLS also enables the Millstadt Library to have deep savings on other resources, like the CloudLibrary where patrons have access to e-books and audio books and Biblio+ where patrons have access to a streaming service. They also provide other vendor discounts, networking, and additional services that allow our library to be the best it can be.

I would love to see you support funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services to ensure these programs can continue to benefit communities across the country.

Thank you for your time,

{Your Name}