The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has been the subject of federal administration gutting since mid-March. Among the casualties are the bulk of its small staff, the bulk of its budget, and the bulk of its services and purpose. When new acting director Keith Sonderling was installed in March, it became clear that the administration saw the IMLS as an arm for whitewashed American propaganda, including an opportunity to ramp up efforts in support of America’s 250th celebration next year.
It did not take long for two major lawsuits to be filed against the administration and its actions in dismantling IMLS. The first, Rhode Island vs. Trump, saw 21 state attorneys general sue the administration. Judge John J. McConnell ruled in favor of the state attorneys general mid-May. It is of little surprise that the defendants have appealed the decision. The second lawsuit, ALA vs. Sonderling, has also seen good news so far in the courts–Judge Richard J. Leon granted a temporary restraining order in the case.
The sum total of these two decisions as of writing are that the administration cannot do further damage to the IMLS. In the case of Rhode Island, IMLS staff placed on administrative leave are allowed to begin returning to work. States in the class–that is, Rhode Island, New York, Hawaii, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin–will see the grants terminated in their states reinstated. The Trump administration issued a status report on May 20 with where and how they’re meeting the obligation of the court decision so far.
Amid the court battle over the future of the IMLS, Trump issued a budget proposal for 2026 that would make any of the legal decisions moot: the IMLS would simply be defunded.
Much of this was seen in generalities until now. Late last week, the details of what this might look like have emerged. Recall that the IMLS budget comprises under 0.005% of the overall federal budget at about $313 million dollars as of this fiscal year. For fiscal year 2026, the budget would be slashed to a mere six million dollars.
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The Budget proposes to eliminate funding for several independent agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), as part of the Administration’s plan to move the Nation towards fiscal responsibility and to redefine the proper role of the Federal Government. The Budget requests
$6,000,000 to conduct an orderly closeout of IMLS beginning in 2026.
The IMLS would no longer distribute grants to states that are then used to help fund public library and museum services. The institution would simply be shuttered, rendering the only federal agency dedicated to public libraries extinct.
The budget is available on page 1105 of this .pdf, which is page 1099 in the document itself.
The 2025 fiscal year ends on September 20, 2025, which means whatever decision is made for the 2026 budget begins October 1 of this year. If the IMLS is slashed as much as proposed, whatever happens in either lawsuit is pretty unimportant–there will be no budget to disburse grants and no budget to pay for staff. This is why we’ll continue to see Trump and his administration appeal any court decisions over the next several weeks and months. If they can pass the budget, then whatever judgments are made against their actions won’t matter. The IMLS will be gone by the fall of this year.
There’s also another factor at play in the future of the IMLS. Congress needs to reauthorize the Museum and Library Services Act of 2018 by September 30. Its 6-year authorization cycle ends at the end of this fiscal year. Only Congress can reauthorize this Act, and if they don’t, the IMLS will no longer be active. So even if the budget for the IMLS is somehow reinstated, if Congress doesn’t act, the agency will no longer have any obligations.
As always, the action items you’ve become familiar with remain. Reach out to your federal representatives in the House and in the Senate and demand that funding for the IMLS be restored. This is a targeted attack on an agency that sees a fraction of a fraction of the federal budget, and it is a move that will most harm small and rural communities. While it will harm public libraries, shutting down the IMLS will have an outsized impact on Native libraries, prison libraries, and other institutions serving and supporting our most marginalized populations.
You can read a full timeline of the dismantling of the IMLS here.
