The Local Impact of Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services Cuts

Contributed

With federal grant funding from IMLS secured by Kelly Armor, the folklorist-in-residence for Erie Arts and Culture was able to help facilitate programs like a West African clothing design workshop for local sewers and quilters.

With a click of a button online, access to information is a right most people have become accustomed to. Knowledge is power, and community hubs like libraries and museums facilitate that, especially for marginalized communities. However, a recent executive order aimed at cutting unnecessary federal funding may have adverse effects on those communities, according to local advocates.

In March, the federal administration signed an executive order proposing the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), citing efforts to streamline government spending and return more authority to states and local institutions.

Although it makes up less than 0.01 percent of the federal budget, the IMLS is the largest source of federal funding for libraries and provides crucial support to museums nationwide. In 2024, Pennsylvania received $10.7 million from the IMLS – $7.5 million for libraries and $3.2 million for museums.

The order stated that the IMLS was deemed nonessential and directed the agency to cease components and functions not required by law. Because the IMLS operates under a budget approved by Congress, it remains uncertain which aspects of its work fall outside legal requirements.

Supporters of the cuts argue they could enable cost savings and empower states to manage cultural institutions more directly. Critics, however, warn that the shift may create funding gaps for communities that rely heavily on federal support.

Impact on Erie County

A mix of rural, urban, and suburban municipalities, Erie County's landscape varies in its access to the internet, information, resources, and experiences depending on proximity to urban centers and income level. Advocates for the IMLS warn that cutting the institution could have the most noticeable effects in communities already facing resource shortages.

Kelly Armor, an Erie expert on the IMLS, has found through her time executing IMLS grant programs and serving on the IMLS grant review board that the work makes meaningful change for those who are most marginalized.

"It doesn't mean the death of the museum – of course not," Armor said. "It just makes it harder for the museum to be able to serve the broadest swath of the community and to be able to reach out to those institutions and communities that don't think of the museum as for them, but it can be."

In Erie, IMLS funds have historically helped places like the Erie Art Museum, the Hagen History Center, and Erie Arts and Culture.

It also provides library resources – including the POWER online database for electronic books and databases and interlibrary loan software – along with professional development and training for library staff via the state. This is through the IMLS Grants to States program.

According to Joseph Sinnott, director of administration at Erie County and former Erie mayor, these resources are a small enough portion of funding that daily operations likely won't be impacted.

For museums, the picture is a little different.

"IMLS' funding programs for libraries provide operating support for the state library system to distribute based on a population formula, but the museum grant funds are all project-based," said Rusty Baker, executive director of PA Museums. "General operating support, funding with no strings attached, is a real need in the museum field to support staff salaries, utilities, insurance, etc. While IMLS funding for museums does not provide general operating support, the ability to fund projects in museums frees up other resources to be devoted to operations."

PA Museums, a statewide museum association, secured IMLS funding in 2019 for leadership programming that included the Erie Maritime Museum.

"PA Museums has been disappointed by the cancellation of grants that were already approved because of the planning and time spent by nonprofits that will no longer bear fruit," Baker said of the recent impact.

In 2022, the Hagen History Center received about $22,400 to update its technology infrastructure. Its grant application states that the funding was to respond to the community's need for internet access, exacerbated by the pandemic.

"[The] IMLS is the nation's only federal funding source for museums," said Caleb Pifer, executive director at Hagen History Center. "Not only does the agency fund museums directly, but it funds every state archive. So there will be a trickle-down effect from federal to state, to local funding gaps. The loss of [the] IMLS makes it that much harder for already cash-strapped museums and historical societies to operate."

Historically, the IMLS has also funded the art museum's Kids as Curators program, along with leadership opportunities.

"When I was at the art museum, it was a really important part of the community outreach," Armor said.

Armor worked at the Erie Art Museum and ran the Kids as Curators program for 12 years until 2018 when she went to Erie Arts and Culture, and 11 of those years, the program was funded by the IMLS.

Kids as Curators worked with three middle schools each year – a rural, suburban, and city school – and gave students the resources to create their own exhibits to be displayed in the museum. She said the public schools were wary to commit each year because of the high staff turnover, and rural schools were unsure of how appropriate the art would be for children because it wasn't something they were familiar with.

But each year, the program was a success and Armor received positive feedback from the schools about how enriching the experience was.

"The schools that are harder to reach are the ones we really need to be working with," Armor said.

Relationship-building has gone beyond schools, though, as most recently, the IMLS granted Erie Arts and Culture the funds to execute programming with 14 different artists at libraries across Warren, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango, and Erie counties.

Funding provided through a grant from Institute of Museum and Library Services helped make this cultural program hosted by Anjali Sahay at Blasco Memorial Library possible. Library resources, as well as funding for institutions like the Erie Art Museum, the Hagen History Center, and Erie Arts and Culture are at risk due to recent federal cuts. (Contributed photo)

Cultivating connection

At Erie Arts and Culture, Armor is known as the folklorist-in-residence. She said her favorite definition of folklore or traditional art is "art that has a job to do beyond simply being something of aesthetic enjoyment."

"For example, a symphony or a Mona Lisa or a landscape painting, they're really meant for our aesthetic contemplation. That's their reason," she said. "We go to a symphony to take it in. We go to an art museum to take the art in. With folk and traditional art, you cannot really separate them from the community and the role they play in the community. So a lullaby is a folk song because it has a job to do – it calms the baby down. It also calms the person who's holding the baby."

Other examples come from ethnic identities like African dances or Eastern European prayer circles, but they can also include Amish quilting, crafting fly fishing lures, or taxidermy.

"A taxidermist is a good example of folk and traditional art because they're not creating a taxidermied buck head or a taxidermied fox to go in a museum," Armor explained. "They're doing it for that hunter."

With her IMLS grant, Armor facilitated 49 folk art workshops throughout various libraries last summer. They included Ukranian-style egg painting, a West African clothing design workshop for local sewers and quilters, and more.

Armor said the IMLS proposals that were most successful and received funding were those that were collaborative and met the needs of the community.

"The IMLS has been very interested in working with diverse communities and making sure that the museum is indeed serving all kinds of people, particularly those people who wouldn't see themselves as museum-goers," she said.

For example, if an African group wanted to teach educators how to incorporate song and dance in the classroom, all those involved must be consulted to ensure it meets their needs.

The IMLS has become a conduit for a bigger cultural shift that began in the '70s when museums began welcoming educators into their space. It became centered around people rather than objects. "Objects are the means in which they do programming, but it's really about the people," Armor said.

The question became how the museum could further the community's interests and challenge the community to better itself.

A broader picture

Although the proposed cuts would not prevent museums or libraries from operating, they would eliminate a key source of support, particularly for smaller institutions.

Over the years, the IMLS has sought to level the playing field by offering grants tailored to small-scale organizations with limited resources. If the IMLS is eliminated or these funds are instead managed by state governments, competition may increase and opportunities could diminish for institutions without dedicated grant-writing staff.

Currently, Armor said, the IMLS has a rigorous grant process to ensure measurable success and that there is community buy-in. Most grants require matching funds, which Armor said can typically be secured with the help of the state. However, if the money is funneled through the state, that avenue will no longer be available.

Armor said the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Education Association are also pieces of the cultural sector puzzle that have been slashed and will hurt the most excluded communities.

"It will affect the poorest, the most marginalized, and the neediest," she said. "The amount of money that the IMLS gets in federal and taxpayer dollars is so small yet the impact has been so great." She said that every dollar is amplified through the IMLS and it was a marker of trust by the federal government in their work.

"By defunding the IMLS I feel like we're cutting off our nose to spite our face. It hasn't been partisan," she said. "It has been about the community and widening the access to culture and learning for all kinds of people. And if that isn't at the heart of democracy, I don't know what is."

Chloe Forbes is a local journalist, reach her at chloeforbes14@gmail.com