New York Public Library Research Room, photograph by Diliff, edited by Vassil, January 2006, GNU Free Documentation License. 
Remer MN Library Historic Depot, Listed 1980 on the National Register of Historic Places, photo Myotus, CCA-SA 4.0 license.
Cultural Property News reported earlier on President Trump’s March 14 executive order reducing six different federal agencies to “the minimum presence and function required by law.” (See Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services Gutted, CPN, April 2, 2025.)
Since that time, the contest over federal support for libraries and museums has moved from threat to full-blown constitutional fight. The executive order arrived the same day that Congress enacted full-year appropriations for IMLS, that then set off a cascade of legal challenges, emergency injunctions, and, on the ground, real-world harm to local services.
Within days of the order, IMLS, which was created by Congress in 1996 and repeatedly reauthorized with bipartisan votes, placed nearly its entire workforce on administrative leave. Agency heads who continued to come to work were walked out by police and the building locked. Grants were halted or terminated, data collection and research were suspended, and the agency’s board was dismissed. According to testimony in subsequent litigation, the administration canceled roughly 1,200 competitive IMLS awards, more than ninety percent of those then in force, and brought back only a handful of staff, few of whom had grants management experience.
Public library in Estherville, Iowa, at night. Photo by RuralResurrection, 21 July 2025, CCA 4.0 International license.
The grant cancellations ricocheted through state library agencies and local systems. In 2024 alone, IMLS had invested $180 million through the Grants to States program, a matching-fund engine that supports programming, technology, work-training programs, wi-fi access, and summer learning in more than 9,000 public libraries and over 16,000 branches nationwide. New York’s allotment, just over $8 million, underwrote literacy programs for children and adults, helped train thousands of staff, strengthened internet access, and even paid the salaries of two-thirds of the state library’s employees. Similar stories exist in every state and territory; remove the federal pillar and the local structure starts to collapse.
State attorneys general moved first. On April 4, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a multistate suit, co-led with Rhode Island and Hawai’i and joined by 18 additional states, arguing that the executive order usurps Congress’s power of the purse and violates the Administrative Procedure Act by attempting to eliminate programs that federal law requires agencies to run. The coalition’s complaint makes the straightforward point that presidents do not get to unilaterally nullify appropriations or rewire statutory missions by fiat, particularly where Congress has just funded those missions for the current year. Their filing emphasized that the dismantling would not only gut IMLS but also destabilize the Minority Business Development Agency (already shrunken from forty staff to five) and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (reduced from roughly 200 staff to fewer than fifteen), further weakening support for minority-owned businesses and the peaceful resolution of labor disputes.
Reading to children, San Jose Library, CA, 27 December 2008, photo by San Jose Library, CCA-SA 2.0 Generic license.
Library workers and their institutions mounted a parallel case. On April 7, the American Library Association (ALA) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), representing the largest union of cultural workers in the country, sued in federal court to block the IMLS takedown. ALA President Cindy Hohl framed the stakes in civic terms: libraries preserve public memory, ensure access to government information, and advance literacy and democratic participation. Strip away IMLS, and you strip away the federal spine that lets local systems do that work. AFSCME’s Lee Saunders underscored the human dimension: library and museum workers help people find jobs, deliver lifesaving services. They deserve support, not a pink slip.
The early court calendar produced contrary results. On May 1, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a temporary restraining order that paused the dismantling days before mass layoffs were to take effect. Five days later, in a related case brought by state attorneys general, a federal court in Rhode Island issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting a shutdown while litigation proceeds. Then, on June 6, a different judge in the D.C. case declined to issue a broader preliminary injunction, allowing some cuts to move forward even as the agency remained bound by the Rhode Island order. In short: the lights flickered, but they did not go out. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the administration’s withholding of IMLS funds violated the Impoundment Control Act, a finding that strengthens the argument that executive policy preferences cannot override appropriated spending.
Exhibit at the Bandera County Library, Bandera TX, photo by Myotus, 18 November 2021, CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, photo by Myotus, 27 August 2023, CCA-SA 4.0 International license.
For libraries and museums, the uncertainty itself does damage. State agencies reported termination notices arriving for already-promised awards, prompting immediate pauses or cancellations of local programs. Systems that rely on federal matching dollars, especially in rural, small, and low-income communities, began to shelve initiatives they could not sustain alone. Broadband upgrades were postponed, digital resource licenses lapsed, job-search and certification workshops were scaled back, and summer learning plans were trimmed or scrapped. Staff attrition followed program cuts.
The chilling effect spread well beyond IMLS as the administration simultaneously disrupted grant flows at the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts and even targeted complementary streams at the National Science Foundation and AmeriCorps that help museums run after-school and informal learning programs.
The legal theory behind the states and stakeholders’ suits is not esoteric. Congress creates agencies like IMLS, NEH, and NEA, defines their missions, and appropriates money for them to carry out specified programs. Presidents propose budgets and set priorities, but they cannot eliminate statutory mandates or impound funds simply because they disagree with the mission. That is why ALA’s brief emphasizes that IMLS is legally required to conduct certain activities and report to Congress on them; terminating those activities after the money has been appropriated and the mandate reaffirmed is not “streamlining”, it is noncompliance.
Children Reading at the Buell Children’s Museum, Pueblo, Colorado, photo David Shankbone, March 2008, GNU Free Documentation license.
If the courtroom rounds feel technical, the community-level effects are anything but. The Grants to States program alone represents roughly sixty percent of IMLS’s annual spending and operates as a multiplier: a federal dollar draws state and local matching funds, which in turn sustain services from children’s story hours and homework help to digital learning and classes to train and credential people to enter the workforce. In large states, the loss runs into the tens of millions of combined federal and match dollars; in small states, even six-figure reductions can collapse a statewide service. The absence of predictability – when will the award arrive, will it arrive at all? – strips administrators of the ability to plan, hire, or contract. A system designed for steady, incremental improvement gets pushed into constant crisis management.
The fights over IMLS have also forced a larger question: What role should the federal government play in the nation’s knowledge and cultural infrastructure? For nearly three decades, the political consensus, even when budgets were tight, has held that the federal contribution is modest in absolute dollars and immense in leverage. Congress explicitly reaffirmed that view in 2018 when it reauthorized IMLS. The recent executive order seeks to reverse that consensus not by persuasion but by administrative deconstruction: put staff on leave, terminate awards, declare programs non-essential, and dare communities to fill the gap on their own.
Shaw/Watha T. Daniel Library, adult reading room, Washington, DC, photo Payton Chung from DCA, USA, 4 October 2011, CCA 2.0 Generic license.
That approach is already meeting resistance. Courts have recognized the immediacy of the harm and the claims of the lawsuits on the merits. State leaders have made it clear that the separation of powers does not go away simply because an executive order says so. Library and museum professionals have kept the public’s attention on the everyday consequences, on the students who lose after-school WiFi, the seniors who lose access to telehealth kiosks, the entrepreneurs who lose help navigating licensing, and the families who lose a place that is open, free, and welcoming when everything else in town closes or costs money.
The next phases will unfold on two tracks. In court, the American Libraries Association, and the state coalitions will press their statutory and constitutional claims toward final judgment. In Congress, advocates are already asking members to demonstrate support for Federal Year 2026 funding through “Dear Appropriator” letters and to make explicit that executive branch actors may not eliminate programs that the legislature has chosen to fund. Both tracks matter. Litigation can stop unlawful dismantling; appropriations can stabilize the system and deter future brinkmanship.
Tozzer Library, on Divinity Avenue in Cambridge, photo by Shelley Zatsky, Harvard University, 1 September 2019, CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license.
For now, the headline is simple, if unsatisfying: the worst outcomes have been temporarily averted in some courts, the administration has been allowed to proceed in others, and the situation remains fluid. But even amidst uncertainty, the underlying fact remains unchanged. Libraries and museums are part of the country’s civic skeleton. They are where people go to learn, to look for work, to keep their kids reading, to get online when they cannot afford home service, to see themselves represented in a shared story. The federal role has never been to run those places. It has been to make sure they can keep the lights on and the doors open.
Update: The Impact of the Shutdown on Libraries and Museums
The government shutdown will further disrupt the work of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, putting federal support for libraries and museums even more at risk. Many IMLS staff will be furloughed, delaying grants, professional support, and essential services. State libraries may be unable to access already-approved federal funds, which could lead to reduced hours, canceled programs, and staffing cuts, especially in small, rural, and Tribal communities that rely most heavily on federal matching funds.
Barbara Bush reading with children in the East Wing, photo by White House staff photographer, circa 1992, public domain.
The shutdown also creates an opportunity for the Trump administration to accelerate its effort to dismantle IMLS entirely. Although courts have temporarily blocked some of those attempts, diminished oversight during a shutdown increases the danger that programs could be permanently reduced or eliminated. Museums will face similar disruptions, with postponed exhibitions and halted community programming. The longer the shutdown continues, the more severe and lasting the losses will be for public access to information, education, culture, and local history. Libraries and museums will continue to serve their communities, but with fewer tools, fewer resources, and fewer protections.
