Update: on July 31, 2025, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee’s spending bill, which included $291,800,000 in total funding for IMLS (see pp. 329-330 for a budget activity breakdown for programs such as Grants to States).

With the U.S. Congress in recess until September, now is an important time to urge federal legislators to preserve federal funding for libraries nationwide via the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) Grants to States program. Grants to States provides funds for the purposes and priorities outlined in the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). State libraries each create a 5-year LSTA plan of programs they will fund using their annual Grants to States allocations. These include INSPIRE in Indiana and MeL in Michigan.  

A July 15 American Libraries article explains the federal budget process briefly. Most years, Congress receives the executive branch’s budget request for the next fiscal year and House and Senate appropriations committees each respond by “marking up” spending bills that eventually help form the next year’s federal budget. The markup begins in several House and Senate appropriations subcommittees and then moves to the full committees.  

The House and Senate each have a Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee (abbreviated here as LHHS) that considers IMLS funding. Some House and Senate appropriations subcommittees started the markup process before the current recess. Based on information from a House contact, staff from the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL) and the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) stated in a July meeting I attended that the House LHHS Subcommittee will not begin the markup process on its federal FY2026 spending bill until September. This means that those who care about libraries’ federal funding have an opportunity to contact their federal legislators.  

Indiana Congressman Frank Mrvan (D-IN-01) and Michigan Congressman John Moolenaar (R-MI-02) both serve on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee. Congressman Moolenaar also serves on the House’s LHHS Subcommittee. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) serves on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Libraries such as Traverse Area District Library (MI) and Crown Point Community Library (IN) have made good use of information and calls to action from organizations including the following to share the positive impact that federal funding makes for libraries’ communities through services such as MeL and INSPIRE: 

• the American Library Association (ALA); 
• EveryLibrary; 
• the Indiana Library Federation (ILF); 
• the Library of Michigan (LM; see also Library Cooperatives of Michigan’s links to fact sheets organized by Michigan Congressional district); 
• and the Michigan Library Association (MLA). 

In addition to the above and MLA’s new MeL bookmark and recent statewide polling data showing strong support for libraries statewide, the MCLS staff created a simple MeL information flyer about MeL’s impact using information from LM. All of the resources linked above are publicly available for anyone to use and share.  

Have a question about, suggestion for, or correction to the information above? I’d be glad to hear from you at garrisons@mcls.org. In the meantime, I hope you will join me in encouraging others to express support for continuing federal funding for libraries, which delivers high return on investment for each dollar spent and significant cost savings for libraries, among many benefits to communities. LM reports that MeL eResources generate $26.96 in return value for each $1 spent, and provided $66,910,869.99 in cost avoidance for approximately 1,265 libraries of all types throughout Michigan, from a total investment of $2,481,885.12 for Michigan FY2024. LM’s 2024 Michigan Libraries Snapshot states that of its $4.8 million in federal funding for that year, LM used $3.7 million for MeL (plus $1.2 million in state funding).  

Libraries provide great value for the investment the public makes in them, and this is an important moment to remind Congress of that.