Public libraries are among the few free, indoor, community spaces we have in the country—there is no expectation that the library user will buy a cup of coffee or a cocktail to justify their stay. In fact, library users are loftily called “patrons,” not customers. Libraries are offering an ever-widening range of services—from 3-D printing, to tool-lending libraries, to seed banks, to toy-lending libraries (not to mention, you know, books).

Until recently, libraries also enjoyed nearly unanimous community support. But now libraries face threats that are numerous and coming from many directions. They include outright funding cuts, reconfigurations of funding streams that make them more vulnerable, and privatization. 

The Samuels Public Library in Front Royal, Virginia has been operating since 1799, making it one of the oldest libraries in the United States. In 2024, it took a number of top prizes in the Virginia Library Association’s annual awards, including best library.

The library is run by a nonprofit in partnership with local government, but about 70 percent of its budget comes from Warren County. In March of this year, following complaints over some of the books in the library’s collection from a group called “Clean Up Samuels,” the Warren County Board of Supervisors voted to cut the library’s annual budget and announced it was seeking to bring in the private, for-profit Library Systems and Services (LS&S), a subsidiary of California global holding company Evergreen Services Group, to run the library. Luckily, following an outcry from the defenders of the library, the company announced in June it was withdrawing its proposal to run the library.

A story about a 92 year old Columbus man who left behind a 109 page, handwritten list of the thousands of books he had read in his life since 1962, all of which he borrowed from the Columbus Metropolitan Library, brought feel-good focus on the role libraries can play in someone’s life (his family created the website What Dan Read to share his list). However, his passing came one day after Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, signed a state budget into law that replaces a funding stream for Ohio libraries that guaranteed them a portion of state tax review with discretionary line-item appropriations that could be at risk for reductions in subsequent budgets.

Legislation introduced in Iowa at the beginning of the year would change eligibility for Enrich Iowa funds, which provides about $2.4 million to about 450 Iowa libraries, to bar members of a nonprofit organization that “promotes federal and state legislation related to libraries and engages in advocacy efforts at the federal, state or local level.” The target? The Iowa Library Association and the American Library Association. 

In March, following a DOGE-instigated Executive Order, the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services was placed on administrative leave and the agency slated to be dismantled. Although a temporary restraining order reversed the order, Trump’s 2026 budget would effectively eliminate the agency, reducing its $313 million budget to just $6 million, which would be used to wind down its work. But the original order had already destabilized library funding.

Politico reports that the Trump administration’s budget slashing was having a big impact on the states as the states finalize next year’s budgets. That includes cuts to libraries.

The State Library and the Talking Book & Braille Library in Washington State closed their doors on July 1. In April, South Dakota’s State Library closed, and, after cutting nearly one-third of its staff, Maine’s state library is down to curbside pickup. That’s just the beginning.

Despite these threats, libraries are still popular with a wide majority of Americans—it’s been a fairly small minority who have lobbied against their funding and their abilities to provide the services they do. 

But the assault on libraries is part of a broader assault on knowledge that includes attacks against public education, scientific research, and even public television. In the face of drastic budget cuts to a vast range of human services, it might seem insignificant to care about what happens to such institutions. But a well-informed, well-educated public is at the root of our democracy.

Trump and DOGE and their billionaire supporters think the nation can’t afford to pay for things like well-funded libraries. We think we can’t afford not to.

Jeff Hagan
Communications Director