We would like to share this advocacy message from our colleagues at the American Institute for Conservation. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) supports Connecting to Collections Care programming and this community. If you value the webinars, courses, and community discussion C2C Care provides, we urge you to reach out to your Representatives and elected officials to let them know about your support for IMLS. If IMLS's non-statutory functions are eliminated, the resources you need, like C2C Care, may be lost. For our non-US colleagues who are part of this community, as well as those in the US without representation, please share these calls for support and raise awareness about this threat to collecting institutions.
On March 14, President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO), Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, directing further drastic cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an agency that is already operating at a minimum level, making up less than half a percent of the overall federal budget.
As you know, IMLS is the only federal agency that provides dedicated support for museums and libraries. It efficiently provides critical resources such as grants for conservation assistance to libraries and museums in all 50 states and territories. This includes essential conservation-focused programs like FAIC's Collections Assessment for Preservation (CAP), Connecting to Collections Care (C2C Care), and Sustainability Tools in Cultural Heritage (STiCH) programs that are funded by IMLS; these resources may disappear if IMLS's non-statutory functions are eliminated. This EO has the potential to gut IMLS within seven days.
AIC is working with our coalition partners, including AAM and ALA, to advocate for IMLS and to assess the full impact of the Executive Order. Important resources for updates are our Advocacy Alerts and the AAM Advocacy webpage.
What you can do NOW:
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- Call your members of Congress. Find their phone numbers and a draft script here. Members of Congress are home this week, so be sure to contact their federal AND district offices!
- Write to your members of Congress. Get started with this template letter and PERSONALIZE it with your stories! These emails have significantly more impact when you customize them and tell YOUR story to YOUR elected officials.
- Write your state and local officials using this template letter. To explain the impact of IMLS funding cuts on their districts.
- Call your state and local officials. Find their phone numbers and a draft script here.
If you can only give a few minutes, please prioritize the email to your congressional representatives. When personalizing your email and telling your story, be sure to highlight how each dollar IMLS sends to institutions in their district or state benefits their constituents. IMLS has a searchable database that lists their projects and funding by state. If you have time to contact your state and local representatives, explain what these drastic cuts IMLS could mean for their districts.
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Katelin Lee
(she/her)
Outreach Manager
Washington DC
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