Every year, Vermont libraries get over a million dollars from the federal government to pay for everything from interlibrary loans to audio books and staff training.
Now that funding is in limbo after an executive order from the Trump administration earlier this month called for reducing parts of the federal government “the President has determined are unnecessary.” That includes gutting an agency called the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides funding to libraries and museums across the state and country.
“These funds touch almost everything we do,” said Vermont State Librarian Cathy Delneo.
Federal funding makes up about a third of the state’s Department of Libraries budget and pays for the transportation of books between over 200 libraries, access to thousands of video courses and the availability of test prep materials for everything from a commercial driver’s license to the SAT. It also helps pay for books at correctional facilities, the state veterans’ home, and the state psychiatric hospital.
“We're offsetting costs that would fall to folks at the municipal level otherwise,” Delneo said.
The state has federal funding for libraries through June, and they might not know more about future federal funding until the end of April, according to staff at the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
“It's definitely opaque at this point,” Delneo said.
The executive order also impacts Vermont museums that have received grants in recent years, including the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in St. Johnsbury; the ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington; and the Vermont Historical Society, with locations in Barre and Montpelier.
They recently received a nearly $180,000 grant to support local historical organizations throughout the state with training and help managing their collection over the next few years.
“We’re assuming that grant will be ended, but we haven’t yet heard officially,” Amanda Gustin, the director of collections at the Vermont Historical Society, told Vermont Edition on Monday.
“That means we’ll lose [a] staff member and the next two years of work that was planned,” she said.
While the organization technically already has a contract with the federal government, there’s no guarantee they’ll be paid without suing the federal government.
“We as an organization don’t have the financial wherewithal to carry the cost of the grant for the perhaps years of litigation in court,” said Steve Perkins, director of the Vermont Historical Society.
Perkins said losing the agency would jeopardize more than their current active grants — it’s the only federal support for museums and libraries.
“And to say it doesn’t matter? That’s tough,” he said.
Delneo, the state librarian, feels similarly.
“I don't agree that the Institute of Museum and Library Services is unnecessary,” she said. “I went around to libraries after the floods in 2023. Libraries that were flooded were helping people to fill out FEMA paperwork — they are not unnecessary."
