The loss of so many government organizations will be devastating for the people of this country in so many ways. One of those organizations is the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services). It’s loss will not only be devastating for readers and museum goers, but for everyone.

Certain communities will be hit harder than others, mostly those in rural areas or less affluent areas. Also areas where the local government is not as invested in libraries (and museums). The county I live in voted to end funding to our county library system about 7 or 8 years ago, so this could impact my community especially hard.

The loss of federal grant money will mean a loss of services for smaller libraries. In some cases this can be digital services (licensing ebooks and audiobooks is more expensive than purchasing physical books) or special programs (like computer classes, summer reading programs, story times, etc.). But it will also mean that they will not be able to purchase as many books, so there will be longer wait times for popular books. And not enough money to purchase less popular books from marginalized authors.

This creates a ripple effect that moves further and further out. Less books in circulation means less checkouts, which means less funding which means less books to purchase, etc. And it doesn’t stop there. Less books purchased by libraries means less demand, so publishers print less books, sign fewer deals, etc. Eventually this affects everyone from readers, to librarians, to publishers, to authors.

The same could be said for many of the other agencies that are being eliminated, but this is a book blog, so my focus is on IMLS. I hope that things won’t get too bad and I don’t want to be dramatic, but I worry about losing access to the library and all of the amazing books by marginalized authors.