Notebook: Libraries and the Election

by Ann Kjellberg, editor Are we fighting over the First Amendment, or something more?

Eclectic Public Library, Eclectic, Alabama

In the summer of 2021, as Congress was debating the 2021 Infrastructure Act, I spoke with John Chrastka, founder of the nation’s only political action committee for libraries, EveryLibrary. A year and a half of pandemic, in which digital connectedness arose as the indispensable conduit for education and learning of all sorts, had thrown in to high relief libraries’ usually supporting status as the one bearer of digital access to everyone: an essential system of national intellectual infrastructure. Advocating for a comprehensive program for national broadband rooted in its natural, already-existing provider, public libraries, John pointed out that 90 percent of US libraries’ funding derives from its local zip code; i. e., the energy local voters and library patrons and employees put into ballot initiatives and lobbying their officials decides whether the individual synapses of this vast system continue to emit their charge. The one guarantor that these synapses aren’t weakened by stretches of poverty and isolation, that they deliver for those in particular need like elderly people and those with disabilities, is the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which distributes federal grants to underfunded libraries and library programs throughout the country. Like Title I, the federal program administered by the Department of Education that redresses inequalities in local tax provisions for public schools, the IMLS ensures that access to information is not confined to pockets of local wealth. John told me that truly connecting America would require a TVA-level investment; in the event, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal allocated $65 billion to broadband.

Fast forward to 2024. The “Mandate for Leadership,” the 2024 version of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s annual policy blueprint, popularly known this year as “Project 2025,” recommends, like its predecessors in 2020, 2022, and 2023, the elimination of the IMLS, as well as the Department of Education and Title I school funding. During his last presidency Donald Trump called for the elimination of IMLS spending every budget season. (An EveryLibrary report on the likely consequences of 2025 Project policies notes that “tribal libraries, in particular, would face challenges in preserving cultural heritage and providing educational resources” if the IMLS disappeared.) On November 6 John Chrastka sent out an EveryLibrary response to the recent election, versions of which appeared in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, saying “last night, American voters elected politicians who proposed defunding libraries while slandering library workers … the future of our public, academic, and school libraries cannot be taken for granted.” It is the particular burden of EveryLibrary that, not only do they have to fight each year for the budget and even the ongoing existence of the IMLS, but, because of the dispersed nature of the American library system, they fight on a case-by-case basis for every library in the land. (Give here.) For instance, John knew about the ballot initiative this year (passed) to increase funding for the one-room library in my small upstate New York town.