Talk:Institute of Museum and Library Services

Libraries Mid‑importance

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United States: District of Columbia / Government Low‑importance

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Museums Mid‑importance

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Total impact of IMLS on overall US library & museum funding?

The article keeps repeating that IMLS is the largest source of federal library & museum funding. But it also reads like a press release about why the IMLS should not be cut, so it doesn't actually describe the real impact of IMLS funding and programs on the library-using community.

My intuition is that the vast majority of library and museum funding comes from local taxes and from philanthropy. Spreading $313M/year across all the states and 9,000 public libraries means that the average library would get about $35,000 per year from this program. (The money is supposedly divided by population, so rural libraries would get much less, and urban ones more. Also, this is an over-estimate, because it doesn't count how many additional museums exist or what portion of IMLS funding goes to them.) Here is a clue: The American Library Association has income and expenses of roughly $50M per year, and it's a nonprofit 501c3 with revenue from publishing, conferences, and memberships; see page 10 here. Are there reliable sources about the total budgets of libraries, their primary sources of funding, and how big a drop-in-the-bucket the IMLS actually provides? (Advocates for its support seem careful not to say.) If so, let's include these relevant facts in the IMLS article, without WP:OR but with WP:CALC. -- Gnuish (talk) 19:59, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gnuish. In 1956 the Library Services Act was passed (the precursor of IMLS) and it ensured that people outside of cities or towns that had tax districts could have service. This included interlibrary loan and technological structure that rural areas did not have. You are correct that IMLS funds are not a high percentage of the funds of local libraries, but for many people they provide the only support that allows people outside of jurisdictions to obtain library services. IMLS is the main source of the data: Data | Institute of Museum and Library Services Kmccook (talk) 20:09, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Consequences of ILMS's elimination

The article doesn't really say anything about the effect of shuttering the agency. Are thousands of museums going to close, or are a bunch of do-nothing bureaucrats going to lose their jobs, or something in between? I'm coming here from this local press coverage, which is probably too local to mention here, but at some point broader review articles will start to come out. Prezbo (talk) 18:35, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]