OOn March 14, two things happened to America’s beloved library system.
Hours before a government shutdown would have occurred, the U.S. Senate passed a Republican-led continuing resolution that funds federal services through September—a resolution that includes funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
That same day, President Trump issued an executive order calling for the elimination of “non-statutory components and functions” in seven small federal agencies, IMLS among them.
Like many of the orders testing the bounds of executive authority issued in the flurry of President Trump’s first few months in office, this term, some elements of the order are unclear, including the status of current grants and what may be deemed “statutory functions.” Trump can’t eliminate IMLS entirely: Congress established it in 1996, and the administration doesn’t have the federal power to axe an independent federal agency codified by law.
But as we’ve seen with DOGE’s slash-and-burn approach to fiscal reduction, evidenced by mass firings at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and the U.S. Agency for International Development, agencies can be gutted to the point of becoming nonfunctional. The intent to destroy IMLS—which, with a budget of roughly $290 million, makes up less than 0.003 percent of the federal budget, all while yielding massive economic and social impacts—is clear in the executive order’s language (“eliminated to the maximum extent,” reduced “to the minimum presence and function required by law”).
Dozens of museum and library organizations have staunchly denounced the order, and the American Library Association (ALA) was quick to issue a statement.
“By eliminating the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services,” the ALA wrote in a March 15 statement, “the Trump administration’s executive order is cutting off at the knees the most beloved and trusted of American institutions and the staff and services they offer.”
Shortly after the executive order, the Trump administration appointed Keith E. Sonderling, Trump’s recently confirmed secretary of labor, as acting head of the IMLS. In a statement, Sonderling affirmed he was committed to being in “lockstep” with the administration.
“We will revitalize IMLS and restore focus on patriotism,” Sonderling said, “ensuring we preserve our country’s core values, promote American exceptionalism and cultivate love of country in future generations.”
A February 27 executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” took that patriotism mandate one step further, taking aim at the Smithsonian’s vast apparatus (calling out the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in particular) to claim it has promoted “divisive, race-centered ideology.”
In the executive order, President Trump calls for Vice President JD Vance, who serves on the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents, to “remove improper ideology.” The Smithsonian comprises 21 museums, in addition to research centers, libraries, and the National Zoo.
Potential effects on Triangle libraries
North Carolina libraries are primarily funded through municipal and county taxes, with some additional funds allotted by the General Assembly and outside donors.
Local taxes, however, primarily cover the essentials and basic services. Federal grants, like the ones from IMLS, help fund special programming and initiatives.
IMLS awarded over $30 million in grant funding to North Carolina between 2020 and 2024. Past awards have gone to projects like bookmobiles, nutritional programs, mental health programming, lactation spaces, funding for baby story time kits, and digital hotspots; many of these grant-funded initiatives were concentrated in rural communities.
Last year, in 2024, North Carolina was awarded $2,527,641 through IMLS’s Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). The grants were disbursed to 41 libraries, in a broad range of amounts, across the North Carolina library system. Local libraries now face a limbo period regarding the administration of future grant-funded programs.
The largest LSTA grant to a North Carolina library, $814,264, was awarded to UNC-Chapel Hill’s North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, a program run out of UNC’s Wilson Library that helps digitize statewide material—images, city directories, and records, among other historical ephemera—and make them searchable.
The program, the state’s hub for the Digital Public Library of America, began in 2017. Staff did not respond to requests for comment about whether the program’s duration or personnel will be affected by IMLS cuts.
Navigate to the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center website to type in a historic term, and the website draws up a massive newspaper repository from across the state. (I typed in “Wilmington 1898” and found articles—some naming the historical event as a coup, others dating back to 1902 wielding obscenely racist language—that painted a broad portrait of how the event has been framed over time.)
UNC Greensboro’s Digital Library on American Slavery likewise received funding for digitization efforts—$103,083 for the library’s “People Not Property: Slave Deeds” project, a collaboration between multiple state cultural heritage offices, to expand its searchable database of tens of thousands of slave deeds collected.
While a project like “People Not Property” might not engender Sonderling’s goal to “cultivate love of country,” it does substantially deepen scholarship about the state’s history and make it possible for African American families to trace their family lineage.
The smallest LSTA grant, $5,000 earmarked for the Southern Pines Public Library, goes toward a dementia and memory care kit collection. In the Triangle, a $40,300 grant went to the Maker + STEAM Services program, and a $45,000 grant was disbursed to the Chapel Hill Public Libraries’ Chapel Hill Descendants Project. Like the UNC Greensboro initiative, the Descendants Project explores ancestral connections to enslavement in the Chapel Hill area.
Across the country, many libraries and museums have issued calls for support in response to the executive order targeting IMLS. Spokespeople for both the Chapel Hill and Durham libraries that the INDY contacted issued careful responses to interview requests.
Laura Brown, assistant director of the Chapel Hill Library, wrote over email that “the bulk of our budget comes from the Town of Chapel Hill and Orange County,” clarifying that the library does not receive ongoing IMLS funding.
“We have received grants in the past from IMLS for short-term projects (like the Descendants) and are grateful for the special initiatives we were able to support through this funding,” Brown wrote. “We don’t have anything more to share at this time.”
Stephanie Bonestell, public relations officer for Durham County Libraries, wrote that the library has not applied for any LSTA grants for the next year.
“We are awaiting information on how potential federal cuts to IMLS may affect our library system from the State Library of North Carolina and Durham County Government,” Bonestell wrote. “Despite these uncertainties, our Library remains committed to serving our patrons with the resources available.”
Last week, at the long-awaited opening of Carrboro’s well-outfitted Drakeford Library, Mayor Pro Tem Danny Nowell offered a bluntly jubilant appraisal of the government’s role in supporting libraries.
“They want us to think that this is not possible,” Nowell said. “They want us to think that we can’t build this for each other. They want us to think that government doesn’t do this. We’re sitting at the end of a 40-year project …. And it lifts my spirits. So thank you, and let’s fight for more of it.”
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