The Institute of Museum and Library Services will be dismantled, and federal funding for libraries will cease, preventing loans across multiple libraries. Most rural and small city libraries depend on federal funding to offer audiobooks and e-books through Libby, Cloud Library, and Hoopla. Digital loans will likely cease, and only the big cities will continue to provide them, as local taxes primarily power libraries.
Overdrive, Hoopla, Kanopy, ZINIO, and Cloud Library power the digital collections of every library in America. The more extensive libraries deal with multiple companies simultaneously. They offer audiobooks, comics, e-books, magazines, and newspapers to patrons who primarily want to read content on their e-reader, smartphone, or tablet. Without federal funding for librarians, libraries won’t be able to offer fewer digital offerings or stop them altogether.
Some US States will only continue to operate if the local government allocates more funding. However, this will likely not happen because most members of Congress are openly hostile to libraries. The book-banning phenomenon has never been more prevalent.
Without federal funding, many other programs will disappear, including library services for people in prisons, juvenile detention facilities, and psychiatric institutions, summer reading programs for youth, and library services for the blind and print-disabled.
This is a big deal, and it is a shame that libraries in the United States are affected. However, libraries in other countries are not affected by this situation. Libraries and museums are among the country’s most beloved and trusted institutions. The American Library Association has just launched a new website that explains the whole situation in greater detail, in addition to what people can do to help.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.