Trump’s dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services is harmful to programs Georgia residents depend on.
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Thirty years ago, Lisa MacKinney was a recent college graduate looking for a job when she walked into her local library, where she’d volunteered to fulfill a community service requirement for her degree. “They knew me so well,” she says, but “I never thought about working in the library.” When MacKinney explained to the clerk that she was job hunting, the clerk said, “Don’t leave. Stay right there. I’ve got something for you.” She returned with the library director, who hired MacKinney on the spot.
Now director of the Hall County Public Library, MacKinney says that’s the power of public libraries, which serve every member of their communities in ways that far surpass book distribution. If you need something, she says, “ask your library. You will never know what they can provide you.”
She adds, “It would be really hard for anybody to keep on top of every single wonderful thing that our libraries are doing. If I really think about it, sometimes it seems a little overwhelming: There’s not a lot of entities that serve everyone from birth to death. And the library actually does do that.”
On March 14, President Donald Trump signed an executive order dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the federal organization tasked with supporting and empowering the nation’s museums and libraries. Now, Georgia’s librarians are scrambling to ensure they can continue serving the communities that depend on them.
Federal–state partnerships
Public libraries often operate on shoestring budgets from state and local governments, supplemented by the federal government through the IMLS, which provides money to state library agencies that decide how to disperse it. In Georgia, the Georgia Public Library System (GPLS) uses IMLS money to help pay for bulk services and programs used throughout the state. IMLS-funded programs are particularly impactful in low-income and rural districts — where libraries have the smallest budgets — greatly expanding the array of programs, services and reading materials those libraries are able to offer.
“Whether you live in Atlanta, Decatur, Dunwoody, Savannah, Macon or up in Blairsville, you have access to a lot of the same resources,” explains DeKalb County Public Library Director Alison Weissinger. She compares IMLS funding to retailers like Sam’s Club or Costco: “You get to buy things in bulk so that everybody can partake, and you’re getting a good deal.”
Those bulk services save individual library systems significant costs and include GALILEO, a vast collection of academic and research databases; reading programs such as this year’s Color Our World summer reading challenge; and productivity software such as Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. “It’s the epitome of wise management of federal dollars because it really makes those local and state dollars go that much farther,” Weissinger says.
One of GPLS’ biggest programs is the Public Information Network for Electronic Services (PINES), a system of digital services and interlibrary loans used throughout much of the state, for which the IMLS pays about half. The network includes digital systems for holds, checkouts, returns and renewals, among other labor-saving services. PINES’ greatest benefit, however, is providing library users throughout Georgia with free access to every book in the state’s libraries — a whopping 11 million titles, according to MacKinney, who also serves as the chair of PINES’ Executive Committee. “There’s no way any library could afford to buy the depth and breadth of a collection that you can access through the PINES network,” MacKinney says. “This is sort of a great equalizer.”
GPLS also uses IMLS funds for the Georgia Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (GLS), which provides free braille and talking books to Georgians who are vision impaired or unable to hold physical books. “[They’re] some of our most vulnerable people,” says Alan Harkness, director of Chattahoochee Valley Libraries in Columbus, explaining that several hundred patrons in his district use GLS services. Though services like GLS are less visible than more broadly-used programs, he says, “they impact lots and lots of people across the state.”
Budget and operational changes at IMLS
Despite the agency’s multitudinous benefits and recipients’ ability to stretch limited funding, the IMLS has found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Trump followed up his March executive order, which eliminated the IMLS and demanded staff and service cuts, by appointing a new agency head: former Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling.
On March 20, Sonderling released an official statement vowing that under his leadership, the agency would be in “lockstep” with the Trump administration’s agenda. By early April, Sonderling and DOGE had placed all but 12 of the agency’s 75 employees on administrative leave; fired the entire board of the National Museum and Library Services; and begun canceling IMLS grants. DOGE’s X account congratulated him on April 3 for “canceling $25M in wasteful DEI grants.”
Wessinger calls the accusation that IMLS is wasting taxpayer dollars “shocking.” “Libraries are really good about being good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” she says, adding, “We’re not where there is waste, fraud and abuse in the government.”
Indeed, in 2024, the agency’s $294.8 million budget amounted to about .003% of the total federal budget, according to the American Library Association (ALA). That money was the biggest source of federal money dedicated to public libraries that year and paid for programs and services that benefited 1.2 billion people. GPLS received around $5 million from IMLS last year.
Currently, a pair of lawsuits challenging the IMLS changes, Rhode Island vs. Trump and ALA v. Sonderling, are making their way through the courts. Those cases may be rendered moot, however, if Congress approves Trump’s proposed budget for 2026, which eliminates funding for the IMLS, instead allotting $6 million to fund closure of the agency. If this budget passes, the IMLS will cease operations on October 1 of this year.
How GA’s libraries are responding
Uncertainty over the IMLS’ future leaves Georgia’s libraries in a precarious position, which library directors are approaching in different ways.
Chattahoochee Valley Libraries is planning as though programs currently funded by IMLS will not be available in 2026, Harkness says. “We’re going to budget as if we’re not getting it, and, if it means we have to dip into reserves, if it means we have to cut operational funds, then that’s what we’ll do.” He adds that every effort will be made to cause as little interruption to current services as possible.
Nevertheless, without the supplemental funds from IMLS, library systems would have to replace or do away with many of the tools and services GPLS currently pays for. And because they’d be purchasing these products on a much smaller scale, individual systems would not get the same bulk deal GPLS is able to command. “We’d try to absorb as much as we can and make it so that the patrons aren’t going to feel the hurt,” Weissinger says. “But sometimes it just can’t be avoided. You can’t just absorb $5 million and expect things to move on as they have been.”
Weissinger is particularly concerned about potential impacts on the state library, whose expertise she says local library systems depend on. IMLS funds pay for staff and resources at GPLS, and the loss of those funds would result in cuts at the state library.
GPLS would also suffer major impacts without IMLS funding, as individual library systems are not set up to serve the blind and disabled patrons who depend on it. “They have specialized equipment,” Weissinger explains. “They have staff that do reader advisory for this population. And it’s a population that doesn’t have a lot of other resources available to them.”
PINES is vulnerable as well, particularly in communities that can’t afford to pay for the service on their own. “I’m trying to imagine what life would be like for the [around] 150 counties in Georgia that use PINES and how they would manage with reduced service or no service at all,” Harkness says. He may find out sooner than expected: According to Deborah Hakes, director of marketing and communications at GPLS, uncertainties over PINES’ funding may soon start causing delays in hold deliveries.
Libraries are really good about being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We’re not where there is waste, fraud and abuse in the government. –Alison Weissinger
In the meantime, Harkness, MacKinney and Weissinger encourage library patrons to contact their elected officials at the local, state and federal levels and encourage them to support local libraries. They can also help by getting involved at their local library. “I would strongly encourage them to reach out to their local friends of the library group,” MacKinney says, referring to the fundraising and advocacy groups attached to most public libraries.
Libraries are always there for people who need them, and Georgia’s librarians are determined to keep it that way. “When no one else wants to help somebody, sometimes the public library is the last resort,” Harkness says. “There’s no other service there for them. ‘Public’ means everyone, and we try to help everyone.”
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Rachel Wright has a Ph.D. from Georgia State University and an MA from the University College Dublin, both in creative writing. Her work has appeared in The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a novel.
