The federal government has cut millions of dollars in funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services in recent months. These actions are impacting staff and limiting operations across the University’s library system.
Since the NEH was created in 1965, the University has received $5.6 million in grants from the endowment. The University has also received nearly $23 million in funding from IMLS since 1998.
In the weeks following federal funding cut announcements, numerous University Library staff were notified that their grants were terminated. These losses are some of the latest developments in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to reduce the size of federal agencies via its Department of Government Efficiency.
“We knew this was coming because there have been all kinds of other things happening with IMLS,” said Claire Stewart, dean of libraries and University librarian. “President Trump has been issuing executive orders and additional other documents and movements … but I think the biggest change was when an acting director was appointed … communications started coming out about the intention to discontinue grants.”
The IMLS and NEH have long served as lifelines for libraries and archives nationwide, and their impact goes beyond just money. The agencies provide legitimacy, structure and momentum for initiatives ranging from digital preservation to workforce development.
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“(IMLS has) been the primary source of federal grant funding for us for a very long time, and it’s just completely disappeared,” Stewart said. “That leaves us with no partner in the federal government to turn to.”
The emotional toll of the cancellations is just beginning to surface as faculty grapple with disrupted plans and the messages these cuts send about the value of their work. For those who have spent careers preserving institutional memory and public access to history, the loss feels deeply personal.
“It’s impacted directly — the library and the archives,” said Joanne Kaczmarek, University archivist and head of archival programs. “To say the least, it is extremely disappointing and demoralizing in some ways.”
Chris Prom, the library’s coordinator for sponsored research development, was awarded a grant in 2021 to develop a technical standard for preserving emails for later research. Prom worked with the PDF Association to publish the technical standard for public use.
When Prom learned of the funding cuts in early April, his project was mostly completed, but he expressed concern about the termination of similar projects.
“There’s a loss to individuals because historically, IMLS funding has provided good opportunities, particularly for new professionals,” Prom said. “There’s a public interest loss as well because IMLS … has also provided funding to state libraries, public libraries and other aspects of the information ecosystem that universities and the public rely on.”
A group of University archivists is among those whose grants were terminated following cuts to the NEH. Their grant, initially provided as part of the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program, allowed for the digitization of records of women involved in domestic science or home economics at the University.
Bethany Anderson, a natural and applied sciences archivist and professor in LAS, was one of the archivists involved with the project. She said the group was seven months into the two-year project when she received notice that the grant had been terminated.
One of her collaborators was Mary Ton, professor and digital humanities librarian at the University. Ton was brought onto the team to help apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to the digitization process. The group estimated they had digitized 9,578 items and were laying the groundwork for making the records publicly available when funding was cancelled.
“Initially, this was so demoralizing,” Ton said. “To be a woman in computer science, being told that my work doesn’t matter is heartbreaking.”
For Ton personally, the funding cut threatened her position as a tenure-track faculty member. She said she was concerned for early-career scholars and the diminishing opportunities available for them in the field.
“I think we’re all deeply concerned about how this impacts students,” Ton said. “The cut in federal funding also impacts opportunities for students to explore opportunities in the humanities and libraries and get professional development experience that they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Anderson noted that several donors have stepped up to fill in funding gaps. Donations from the Main Library itself, the Department of History and the Funk ACES Library will keep a student employed as a graduate student assistant. The donations may also allow for the hiring of a graduate student programmer to work on the project.
“I’ve been really amazed and incredibly heartened to see how much the University and the library as a whole have been trying to support us through this whole process,” Anderson said. “They’ve been reaching out, trying to find sources of funding, so that’s been really helpful and heartening.”
Faculty and administrators are turning to internal and community resources without federal support, but the scale doesn’t compare. Though private donations have sustained some operations, funding gaps remain.
“The problem with that is the (private) funding levels are nowhere near what the federal government can invest or coinvest with universities,” Stewart said.
The cuts signal a loss of access to information and the fading of critical primary documents. Library faculty at the University and across the nation are concerned about a future without support for their work.
“We’re not alone,” Kaczmarek said. “This is happening across the country. So if there’s any solace in knowing that this is hitting everybody, maybe there’s some little silver lining that will cause people to work together to try to combat some of what I think many of us feel like is a very serious time.”
