Contact your DC elected officials now to support IMLS. You can use AAM’s advocacy tools to more easily advocate.
See op-ed in ADN, published on March 23, 2025. Or read it below:
One of President Trump’s latest executive orders, Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, instructs agency heads to quickly dismantle seven government agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
IMLS is the only agency dedicated to providing support and funding to museums, cultural centers, and libraries across the country. It is a research and granting agency that is incredibly efficient and effective. Their $294.8M budget is less than one-hundredth of one percent of the overall federal budget (0.0046%), and they award $266.5M of their budget in grant funding to museums, cultural centers, and libraries every year.
IMLS is hugely beneficial to our state and to the communities our museums, cultural centers, and libraries serve. Since 1996, almost $63 million in IMLS funding has been granted to organizations in Alaska.
This funding supports critical infrastructure, technology, training, educational and community programs for museums, cultural centers, and libraries.
IMLS funding for Alaska libraries totals $1.2 million per year and supports important statewide projects like Books by Mail, Reference 1-800 services, Talking Books, SLED Statewide Databases, Battle of the Books, and the Alaska Digital Library. These have become essential services that most Alaskans will lose access to if their funding is cut, regardless of whether they have a public library in their hometown—for example, Books by Mail serves Alaskans who don’t have access to a library building, and Talking Books serves Alaskans who cannot read standard print.
With IMLS funding, museums and cultural centers in Alaska have provided new educational programming for students and community members, digitized collections to provide more public access, rehoused collections to better care for them into the future, and completed professional assessments and training to improve museum practices. IMLS funding has allowed museums and cultural centers to improve and expand services—ensuring Alaska’s history, art, and culture will be preserved for generations to come.
Surveys completed by the American Alliance of Museums and the American Library Association show that the overwhelming majority of the American public supports current or higher levels of federal funding for museums, cultural centers, and libraries.
With its latest actions, the administration is undermining public services Alaskans rely on.
Please contact Senator Murkowski, Senator Sullivan, and Representative Begich and ask them to prevent the dismantling of IMLS because Alaska’s museums, cultural centers, and libraries depend on it.
Rachel Nash, President, Alaska Library Association
Dixie Clough, Director, Museums Alaska