On Monday, the White House administration placed the entire staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on administrative leave, following Donald Trump’s 14 March Executive Order.
Created in 1996, the IMLS is a federal agency with around 70 employees responsible for administering grants to museums and libraries in the United States. The Institute reports that it awarded $266 million of funding to cultural institutions in 2024, compared to the National Endowment for the Arts projected 2025 budget of $210 million.
The Chief Officers of State Library Associations, an organisation representing the nation’s libraries, said in a statement that they were ‘greatly dismayed but not surprised’ by the Executive Order. They warned of the negative implications of dismantling the IMLS, which is ‘the single largest source of critical Federal funding for libraries’ and ‘makes up a substantial portion, from an average of one third to over one half of each State Library agency’s annual budget’.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing IMLS staff, announced that work on processing 2025 and 2026 grants and applications has ceased entirely, and that ‘without staff to administer the programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated’.
