Your Library Is Under Attack
Defend It With Your Life
Hello, readers.
For those of you who know a little about me in real life, you know that I am a school librarian. Yes, it’s true: I don’t just sit around making literary memes and writing on Substack all day.
I’ve had a bunch of jobs and side-hustles, but none as important as being a Library Media Specialist.
I love the work that I do, and I think it is crucial. Not only do the books that I bring into my library help shape the minds and perspectives of my students, but I also teach them to think critically, understand valid research, and how to demonstrate ethics when using and citing outside sources.
Pretty simple stuff, really, but I’m extremely proud of what I am able to accomplish in my role.
To create a larger impact, last year I applied and was chosen to be the school library rep of my state library’s Advisory Council for Library Planning and Development. Along with some of the best librarians across the state, we provide advice, assistance, and guidance on any number of statewide programs and service responsibilities.
Why am I telling you this? Because last Thursday, I found out in an email from the ACLPD Director just moments before it happened that like so many other great institutions, DOGE was dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
No big announcement on TV interrupting your normally scheduled programming. No big press conference with Trump tossing out his pen after he signs the executive order. No real outrage from Democrats…
Only a week after Trump’s executive order, Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency quietly invaded the IMLS. All this done while no one was looking and all under the cover of night.
If you are wondering what the Institute of Museum and Library Services is and what they do, this article is for you. But basically, the agency “provides financial support to a wide array of cultural and educational institutions, including art, science and history museums, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens and historic sites.”
Libraries of all types benefit from the agency’s funding—IMLS is the only federal agency dedicated to sustaining the entire museum and library ecosystem in the United States. Needless to say, we are pausing our work as a committee to see how this might affect the work of all state libraries and as a result, your local and university/school libraries, as well.
Sure, libraries are mostly funded by local tax dollars, but the funding they do get from the federal government goes towards things like employee training and technology updates. These cuts obviously will become especially severe for economically disadvantaged people living in low-income and rural areas( you know, the people who Trump claims to represent most). According to Pew Research, About 77 million Americans depend annually on public libraries for reliable internet access.
To learn more about how devastating this could be for literacy programs, workforce training, digital resources, cultural preservation and civic engagement initiatives, you must read Leo S Lo’s Guardian article here.
If you’re anything like me, you have respect for libraries and museums. And if you are also anything like me, you have zero respect for Trump, Musk, or the dimwits at DOGE.
Now if you’re anything like me, you have the utmost respect for libraries, museums and the funding which helps them hire qualified staff, fund technology, and do educational outreach. And if you are also anything like me, you have zero respect for Trump, Musk, or the dimwits at DOGE and their ridiculous attacks on American institutions.
Yet apparently, the 70 agency employees watched helplessly as the DOGE kids and new the Acting Director Keith Sonderling (who was only sworn in moments before in the lobby) ripped through their offices, flanked by Department of Homeland Security agents.
That’s right—Homeland Security agents put clerks and civil servants up against the wall while they dumped out their desks, rummaged through their file cabinets, and stole their computers, just in case someone decided to act fast and issue a quick grant while no one was looking.
This is a new, all-time low. If you think dismantling the Department of Education was bad (but not really your problem because you aren’t an educator or don’t have school-age kids), this one hopefully wakes you up out of your stupor.
I repeat: this one is really bad. Now wake the fuck up.
Still believe DOGE is actually about governmental inefficiency? Try this on. IMLS represents just 0.0046% of the federal budget, while museums generate $50 billion in economic impact” (American Alliance of Museums).
Also, an American Library Association (ALA) statement and call to action highlights many ways that “libraries of all types translate 0.003% of the federal budget into programs and services used in more than 1.2 billion in-person patron visits every year, and many more virtual visits” (American Libraries Magazine).
This is not inefficient. That is the opposite of inefficient, folks. That is efficient and productive.
So what is really happening here?
There’s two answers and you might not like either, but you’re really not going to like the second answer.
The first answer is that Trump and Musk are attacking agencies they disagree with, masking their true intentions under the guise of “ending tyrannical bureaucracy.” Since there is no evidence of fraud and abuse at the IMLS, it must mean that this is part of a bigger war on “woke” and “DEI contracts.” But part of their intent is to reshape the agency toward “promoting American exceptionalism and cultivating patriotism.” Hmmm…
A few days ago, Trump said his order against libraries “continues the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary.” Hmmmm….
So then according to Trump, having a place to go and read a book or find information is unnecessary, unexceptional, and unpatriotic. Doesn’t really make sense…but okay, I guess.
Or perhaps this is just the ultimate book ban? Why just ban one book when you can ban ‘em all. Censorship and hostility towards educational and cultural institutions is a MAGA tenet, so here is a chance to kill them once and for all in one fell swoop?
Either that or Trump/Musk think the tax money allocated to state museums and libraries is “wasteful,” another DOGE buzzword. But if this is part of Trump and Musk’s “common sense” government reform, I find it hard to find the sense behind getting rid of a profitable, revenue generating entity of the federal government.
Or perhaps they are just stockpiling the federal reserve so they can invest more tax dollars into F-47 fighter jets, a move that was announced only one day after gutting the Department of Education.
So according to Trump, investing billions of dollars in these war machines while we are not currently at war is a better investment than ensuring educational policy and equity for the nation. Again, doesn’t really make sense…but okay, I guess.
Well, what about the second answer. Remember I said that you wouldn’t like it?
The other reason why Trump/Musk/DOGE are targeting and suppressing libraries is because it is a main tenet of good old fashioned fascism.
Ooh, I used the “f-word.” I told you you weren’t going to like it.
Fascists hate libraries because libraries represent everything that fascists hate. I would actually go as far to say that libraries are “anti-fascist.”
The free loaning of books and the use of the technology to get information or learn about the past is something a true fascist hates. Since the library can bridge the gap between the community and the resources they are in need of, minorities and other traditionally overlooked groups are able to become functioning members of a society that traditionally would leave them behind. This is community-centered ideology.
Let’s put it this way: a fascist does not believe that access to free books and information should be a necessary right because libraries are a component of a truly liberal democracy.
So marginalized citizens educating themselves or getting access to much needed programs or information is in direct opposition to the fascist’s far-right, ultranationalist political ideology. A fascist wants a society that is passive and demobilized so he can implement his authoritarian agenda.
The fascist might even claim that libraries are “unnecessary, unexceptional, and unpatriotic” as a way to mask their real hatred and true beliefs about minority groups based on their race, religion, ethnicity, and nationality.
In Robert Paxton’s “Five Stages of Fascism,” he modeled that an important fourth step of “using power to dominate institutions” comes right before the fifth step of “implementing radical reforms.” And this is where we currently are.
See, I told you you wouldn’t like it.
What happens now? Well, during his first term, Trump repeatedly called for the IMLS to be shut down, but funding was maintained by Congress. However, this is a very different Congress than his first term, mainly because this one is filled with boneheads, party-line cowards, and bootlicking sniffapants. Needless to say, I don’t know if we can rely on Congresspeople, red or blue, to save libraries.
So what can you do? It not might be much, but you can send an email to governors, senators, and members of the House telling them to stop attacking federal funding for libraries.
Remember, right now Trump is nothing more than a dog testing out the limits of the new electric collar of his second term. He is trying to see what we will allow him to get away with. Together, we need to shock this old, fascist bitch.