Impact of Pending Federal Funding Cuts
March 27, 2025
Dear Library Patrons,
On Friday, March 14, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed a Presidential Executive Order calling for the downsizing or elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the nation’s only federal agency for funding American library services.
We want to let you know how this may directly impact you.
Federal funds distributed by IMLS finance the New Hampshire Inter-Library Loan (ILL) system. Small rural libraries like ours depend on the ILL system to provide you, free of charge, with lending materials (books, DVDs, etc.) from other New Hampshire libraries, which we are unable to afford for our library collection. From March 2024 to March 2025, there were 176,504 interlibrary loan requests filled by 243 libraries throughout the state. Here at Richards Free, just last month alone, we lent out 60 materials to other New Hampshire libraries through interlibrary loan and we requested 123 materials for our patrons from other New Hampshire libraries through interlibrary loan.
Federal funds distributed by IMLS also finance the New Hampshire State Library’s OverDrive platform which provides patrons access, through the Libby application, to e-books, audiobooks, and e-magazines. In 2024, our patrons at Richards Free checked out 6642 downloadable items. In addition, these funds are also used to pay for staffing of the Talking Books for the Blind and Physically Handicapped Program.
Without federal funding distributed by IMLS, all of these services are at significant risk of being discontinued. If you are concerned about the potential impact of the downsizing or loss of IMLS and the funding it distributes to the New Hampshire State Library, which directly benefits libraries like ours, and would like more information, we encourage you to go to the American Library Association website at www.ala.org , the New Hampshire Library Association website at www.nhlibrarians.org , the EveryLibrary website at action.everylibrary.org , and the New Hampshire State Library website at www.nhsl.dncr.nh.gov.
Sincerely,
The Richards Free Library Board of Trustees
and Library Director, Sally J. Bernier
