Our View: Cuts to libraries, library services, cannot be downplayed

What follows is a very fine example of an issue that simply should not divide opinion, least of all along political lines. And yet. Early last week, the Trump administration placed the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the single largest source of federal funding for our country’s museums and libraries, on “administrative leave.

” Without jumping to conclusions, this salvo can be interpreted as the beginning of the end of the agency. For an agency legally established with bipartisan support to be slashed away at like this is deeply disquieting. More disquieting again, however, is the result that the deprivation of federal funding will have on Maine’s libraries’ ability to offer information, education and connection to their communities — rural communities in particular.



The Republican disdain for the library is not at all restricted to Capitol Hill. Maine legislators’ work on cynical, censorious state-level proposals have also sought (with mixed success) to make librarians’ work more difficult in recent years. A recent letter to the editor by a retired town manager laid out just some of what Mainers stand to lose if the administration proceeds with this gutting: public access to high-speed internet, the powerful interlibrary loan service, digital access to e-books and audiobooks, free large-print books for the visually impaired, professional development for librarians and books by mail for rural and homebound residents.

Take a second to remind yourself of the vast potential of a local library membership. Maine’s delegates in Washington should be up in arms. We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers.

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