Having fun isn't hard, when you've got a library card!

The Trump administration has issued an executive order aimed at dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services - the ONLY federal agency for America's libraries.

Using just 0.003% of the federal budget, the IMLS funds services at libraries across the country; services like Braille and talking books for the visually impaired, high-speed internet access, and early literacy programs.

Libraries are known for doing more with less, but even we can't work with nothing.

How You Can Help:

🔥 Call your congressperson!

Use the app of your choice or look 'em up here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

Pro tip: If your phone anxiety is high, call at night and leave a voicemail. You can even write yourself a script in advance and read it off. Heck, read them this post if you want to.

Phones a total no-go? The American Library Association has a form for you: https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=23577

🔥Tell your friends!

Tell strangers, for that matter. People in line at the check out, your elderly neighbor, the mail carrier - no one is safe from your library advocacy. Libraries are for everyone and we need all the help we can get.

...Wait, why do we need this IMLS thing again?

The ALA says it best in their official statement and lists some ways libraries across the country use IMLS funding:

But if you want a really specific answer, here at LCPL we use IMLS funding to provide our amazing interlibrary loan service. If we can't purchase an item you request (out of print books, for example) this service lets us borrow it from another library and check it out to you.

IMLS also funds the statewide Indiana Digital Library and Evergreen Indiana, which gives patrons of smaller Indiana libraries access to collections just as large and varied as the big libraries' collections.

I've started to dip my toes into horror. I'm never going to be a slasher fan but I'm starting to enjoy some spooky shit. Last night I just finished reading A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher and I really loved it. Between that and What Moves the Dead/What Feasts at Night, Kingfisher is very good at writing first person narrators that I just really click with.

It was very refreshing after reading a murder mystery that really dissapointed me and IMO wasted its premise with the least curious main character possible...and she hardly even talked to the ghosts that were advertised on the back of the book. I've had such bad luck when I pick out books at random when I'm at the library but I will continue to do that anyway. If you have any recs for good books with ghosts in them PLEASE I LOVE GHOSTS

I AM NO LONGER HOMELESS. BUT I'M GETTING FUCKED OVER BY THE GOVERNMENT AND HAVE UNTIL THE 1ST TO MAKE £300 TOWARDS RENT

SO REMINDER THAT MY COMMS ARE OPEN.

SO OPEN. SLUTTILY OPEN. THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE OPEN. SO OPEN THAT THEY'RE GONNA GET DONE FOR PUBLIC INDECENCY!

I HAVE A KOFI.

YOU CAN ORDER COMMS OFF ME THERE, OR YOU CAN MESSAGE ME HERE IF YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING THAT REQUIRES MORE DISCUSSION. YOU COULD ALSO BE VERY LOVELY AND JUST BUY ME A KOFI<3

Ok I'm done yelling, here's my comms sheet, please share, love you and take care🖤🖤🖤

I AM NO LONGER HOMELESS. BUT I'M GETTING FUCKED OVER BY THE GOVERNMENT AND HAVE UNTIL THE 1ST TO MAKE £300 TOWARDS RENT

SO REMINDER THAT MY COMMS ARE OPEN.

SO OPEN. SLUTTILY OPEN. THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE OPEN. SO OPEN THAT THEY'RE GONNA GET DONE FOR PUBLIC INDECENCY!

I HAVE A KOFI.

YOU CAN ORDER COMMS OFF ME THERE, OR YOU CAN MESSAGE ME HERE IF YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING THAT REQUIRES MORE DISCUSSION. YOU COULD ALSO BE VERY LOVELY AND JUST BUY ME A KOFI<3

Ok I'm done yelling, here's my comms sheet, please share, love you and take care🖤🖤🖤

If you can buy the books, do. Whether you can buy the books or not, borrow them from your library.

Borrow the paper versions. Borrow the ebook or audiobook versions. Request the titles you want that your library doesn't have. The more a title circulates or is requested, the better librarians are going to be able to defend keeping it if and when it's ever challenged.

Use libraries like @queerliblib too. The more members they have, the better they'll be able to fundraise.

Your community resources depend on you using them. Borrow the books before they go away.

InB4: Piracy is not the solution here. We're trying to keep community resources available, not make sure individual people can read individual books. Different problems.

Libraries and librarians are going to be under attack in the coming years.

Please help us by showing the people in charge that these materials are important in the only way they really understand - the number of checkouts.

Libraries are mentioned on page one of Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership (the big book of horrible policy plans). Choosing not to reauthorize the IMLS will be an easy way for the incoming administration to gut library services nationwide, especially in small communities that don't have a thriving donor base to fill those budget gaps. They'll be able to stop the "porn peddlers" and "groomers" at the cost of vital services to those communities.

One of the best tools we have to try and avoid that outcome is to prove, definitively, that libraries matter by presenting robust use statistics. Checking out books, using library spaces, attending library programs, all of that gets captured and reported to the IMLS each year. They're imperfect measures of the value the library provides to the community, but they're what we have.

At the local level it's going to be just as, if not more important to educate the community about what the library does. Your local governing authorities aren't going to be persuaded by the librarian alone, but they can be persuaded by vocal community support. That will also inoculate your community against "grassroots" attempts to shut the library down, like almost happened in Dayton, Washington in 2023.

Make sure you eat enough and sleep enough, and take the meds and vitamins that you need. Don't believe anything you think if you're hungry and tired and have been scrolling too long.

Get a therapy appointment if you think you need it.

We don’t have a uniform, why do you ask?

Inspired by our friends at Rapid City Public Library (link goes to TikTok). Music only - sound not needed.

[Video Description: A librarian with glasses wearing a polo shirt and shelving books answers an unheard question from someone offscreen. His words are inaudible but the caption reads "The librarian wearing the cardigan and glasses will be able to help you." Video cuts to an information desk where four librarians wearing cardigans and glasses are working. They all turn and wave as four more librarians wearing cardigans and glasses pop out from behind the desk and wave. The librarian from the beginning walks on screen and puts on his own cardigan. And waves.]