An executive order issued by the Trump Administration on Friday, March 14, calls for the elimination of funding and staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, (IMLS) the nation's federal agency for America's libraries. While the Canton Public Library does not receive direct federal funding, the library and its patrons benefit greatly from indirect funding from IMLS to the Library of Michigan. The Library of Michigan administers the following, which would impact library users in Canton and across Michigan:
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- Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grants
- the Michigan Activity Pass (MAP) program
- the Michigan eLibrary (MeL, which pays for statewide research databases)
- MeLCat
- Other programs, such as capital/building efforts, technology upgrades, various smaller grants to support literacy/digital access/local history collections, and continuing education and training for library staff to meet State Certification requirements.
The largest impacts of these cuts will be the loss of LSTA funding for MeLCat interlibrary loan and the MeL research databases. According to the Library of Michigan, “LM uses our annual allotment of LSTA funds primarily for statewide resources and programs that benefit school, public, and academic libraries and library users, and Michigan residents directly. The federal FY 2023 allotment was $4,831,975. The premier statewide program is the Michigan eLibrary (MeL), a virtual library available anytime, anywhere to all Michigan residents.”
Biggest Hits for Canton Library Card Holders
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- Funding for the Michigan Activity Pass program would be eliminated; Canton residents are some of the biggest users in Michigan, checking out nearly 700 passes in 2024 for free or discounted admission to hundreds of attractions across the state.
- Grade schoolers would no longer have access to early literacy and learning resources like Britannica and World Book, which are widely used for homework.
- Teens would be denied college prep practice tests, study skills coaching, and vetted resources for reports and homework.
- Business owners will be without databases useful for marketing and growing their business and small business resources for accounting, finance, management, tax and more.
- Users of all ages will miss out on DIY tutorials, hobby and craft resources, legal help, and family history and genealogy databases.
- Statewide interlibrary loan, which borrows items we don't own from other libraries in the state, therefore reducing redundancy buying, is also provided through MeLCat, which is heavily supported by IMLS funds.
IMLS funding allows libraries to use economies of scale as a negotiating tactic. Instead of the Canton Public Library negotiating with each vendor for our community of 99,000, the state negotiates one statewide contract per vendor and all libraries in Michigan benefit from that volume discount. It is the very definition of efficiency. As a real-life example of the aggregate power of these statewide efforts, in 2024, the Canton Public Library borrowed 9,196 items via MeLCat for our patrons—saving money through resource sharing rather than spending money making duplicative purchases. Likewise, in 2024 we lent 7,606 items to other Michigan libraries.
Cutting IMLS funding will make it more expensive for each public library to run these programs individually. The paring down or elimination of IMLS will result in the loss of our LSTA funding, which would mean that the programs would die or be directly billed to the participating libraries. Services and programs offered by the Canton Public Library would face elimination without IMLS support.
IMLS, as an agency, holds statistical information, opens a new window that allows for benchmarking, research, comparisons, etc., across public libraries in all 50 states; closing the agency would likely result in the stoppage of those surveys and research programs and the loss of the data and data analysis that aid our library in strategic decision-making.
What About Our Local Tax Funding?
The Canton Public Library's direct funding of roughly $7 million annually comes from local, county, and state sources. Our annual statistical dashboard, opens a new window (as of 2024) provides more information, and you can see our current 2025FY budget, opens a new window on our website. This funding is tied to property values and varies as property values increase or decrease in our service area.
If you have questions or comments about the impact of the executive order, or questions about library funding, please contact us.