Reading into the Importance of Public Libraries
For many people in the United States, libraries are lifelong fixtures—from getting one’s first library card and listening to librarians read aloud “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” to cramming for college exams or checking out a book with advice on raising your first baby.
But public libraries across the country are currently at risk due to an Executive Order by President Donald Trump, which calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a federal agency responsible for nearly $300 million dollars in funding for museums and libraries.
Conor Moran, the executive director of the Madison Public Library Foundation (MPLF), says that institutions like libraries are left in limbo while they await possible programming cuts.
“I’m not the only person in the world saying this, but the hardest part about it is the uncertainty right now,” says Moran, who is responsible for private fundraising on behalf of public libraries throughout Madison, Wisconsin. “The hardest part eventually will be the lack of funds, but right now it’s the uncertainty.”
Staff at libraries and museums across the country are uncertain if the cuts will even go through. On April 7, the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), filed a lawsuit in response to the Executive Order. The lawsuit resulted in a temporary restraining order blocking the immediate dismantling of the IMLS—buying time for public libraries and museums as a federal court considers the merit of the case. Despite this victory, ALA President Cindy Hohl calls for continued community support.
“Right now is prime time for every American to show up for our libraries,” Hohl said in a May 1 statement, calling on the public to show acts of support for these public institutions such as, “urging their Senators and Representatives to sign ‘Dear Appropriator’ letters in support of federal library funding.”
Over the past fifteen years, IMLS has awarded nearly $70 million in grants to Wisconsin museums, libraries, and other institutions, according to the city of Madison. While the MPLF is not currently receiving any funds from the federal agency, it does have a long history of grant work using funds from the agency. Prior to Donald Trump’s Executive Order, Moran says, the Madison Public Library was using a multi-year IMLS-funded grant to create tools to help librarians evaluate their current programs.
Although public libraries themselves in Madison are not currently receiving any IMLS funding, partners of the library are, meaning Madison public libraries could be affected in a number of ways, losing services like free Internet access.
“That’s the number-two thing that we do as a library system: connect people with the Internet,” Moran says. “So how do we react and adapt if that’s the kind of thing that ends up going away? Right now, there aren’t any concrete effects that I can respond to. That does not mean that they’re not coming.”
Despite the uncertainty, the Madison Public Library’s 150-year-old downtown location still draws a line out the door each morning when it opens, convening unhoused people, students, and other community members eager to utilize the library’s wealth of free resources.
According to Moran, the word “resource” doesn’t even begin to encapsulate all the services that Madison’s public libraries provide to their surrounding communities. “‘Resource’ understates it,” Moran says. “I like to say that libraries are a promise we make as a community to the community.”
This promise includes 4,700 free programs each year, Moran says, including educational opportunities for students in the carceral system, pro bono tax preparation services for community members, and even a free clothing mending service every Thursday morning.
Diligent service to the community is par for the course at public libraries across the country. The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (CLP), established in 1895, provides a wide variety of programs for more than 2.9 million visitors each year. In addition to more basic literary and technological resources, the library offers materials and services for nonprofit organizations, online programs for language learning, and expansive genealogy and history and collections that allow patrons to research their family history. It even offers use of electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers.
“Comfortable library spaces in neighborhoods welcome people to read, to think, to learn, to share, and to teach each other,” CLP’s website states. “Children and teens learn and grow; adults exchange ideas, acquire new skills, and expand their understanding; and every person in our community has access to ideas, information, and items—in person or electronically.”
In many cities, libraries have also played a key role in the fight against book banning campaigns, which often target literature written by or about people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and women. In 2022, the Brooklyn Public Library established an initiative called Books Unbanned in partnership with the Seattle Public Library, the Boston Public Library, the Los Angeles Public Library, and the San Diego Public Library. The initiative was conceived as a response to elected officials, board members, and administrators across the country seeking to censor books in schools and public libraries.
“You have the Seattle Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library making a library card available to anyone nationally,” says Moran, “so you could then use their collection and check out books that might have been banned in your neighborhood or your community. That’s incredibly far reaching.”
According to a 2024 report, created in collaboration between the Seattle Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library, Books Unbanned has had an extensive reach, garnering virtual cardholders from all fifty U.S. states. The report includes testimonials from cardholders, such as one twenty-two-year-old from North Carolina who said that their public library has been instrumental in “finding trans and LGBTQ+ information and seeing characters like me when no one in my small, conservative town could openly talk about such things.”
In addition to these more specialized services, the vast majority of libraries across the country provide more basic services such as learning programs for children and Internet and computer access.
In April, The Progressive spoke with patrons of the Madison Public Library, and it was these universal services that most people said they would miss in the face of funding cuts.
“When I was in middle school and high school, we didn’t have computers at my house, so that’s why I went to the public library: to print and use their computers,” says Leaura Manuel, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Another University of Wisconsin–Madison freshman, Mary Abbe, fondly recalls her childhood local library in Eagan, Minnesota. “My mom loves the library,” she says. “She would drop me off there when she went to work and I would stay there all day.” Abbe recalls the library having a 3D printer, green screen room, and groups events like a knitting club in which she participated.
Given how many people rely on the immense resources traditionally provided by public libraries, library-lovers see the potential impact of Trump’s Executive Order as high stakes—and their efforts to protect public libraries aren’t falling on deaf ears. In April, lobbying librarians helped persuade Ohio state lawmakers to ensure that the state will increase funding for public libraries in the coming year, rather than pursue the budget cuts originally proposed in the legislature following the federal library funding cuts.
Moran says that the Madison Public Library Foundation experienced an unprecedented increase in donations on Library Giving Day, which took place eighteen days after the signing of Trump’s Executive Order.
“Right before Library Giving Day, which was on April 1, we took part in that national push to have people support libraries, and we saw double the amount of money that we raise on a regular year,” he says. “People came out in droves to support their library, and what we’re kind of reading into that is, libraries are really important to people, and that remains true, but also that people are willing to support libraries.”
One of the most effective ways to support public libraries also happens to be one of the easiest: showing up and using their resources. “Those numbers really matter when we’re having city budget conversations and they matter when we’re talking to legislators,” Moran says.
Moran is confident that in these trying times for many U.S. institutions, community members will rise up to support their local libraries.
“We had a library here before we had electricity, before we had sewers, before we had garbage collection,” Moran says. “This is something that Madison has stood for for a century and a half—it’s not something that this community is going to stop supporting just because something happened at the federal level.”