The Friends of Whipple Free Library want to thank all who donated and participated in our very successful auction. See you next year!
On Friday, March 14th, President Trump signed an executive order that calls for defunding and potentially eliminating the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). IMLS is the federal agency responsible for distributing congressionally approved funds to state libraries, museums, and archive programs.
Since then, many patrons have expressed concern about what this order might mean for the Whipple Free Library. In New Hampshire, IMLS funds are primarily used to administer our Interlibrary Loan program (ILL), Talking Books for the Blind, and Libby, the platform through which patrons access eBooks and audiobooks. Many details are still unknown at this time, but the bottom line is that if this federal funding is removed, these programs will be significantly (and negatively) impacted.
Last year, the Whipple Free Library:
• Checked out 6,399 audiobooks, 3,408 eBooks, and 1,030 magazines to our patrons through Libby
• Borrowed 1,449 items for our patrons through Interlibrary Loan, 812 of which were books for our adult, teen, and children’s book clubs
• Loaned 691 items to other NH libraries through Interlibrary Loan
If you value these resources, please reach out to your federal representatives and encourage them to support these vital library services and the continued funding of IMLS.
• Senator Shaheen (202) 224-2841
• Senator Hassan (202) 224-3324
• Representative Goodlander (202) 225-5206
On Wednesday, April 2, the National Endowment for the Humanities Acting Chair Michael McDonald notified all humanities councils that their awarded grants were cancelled in their entirety, effective immediately. Here in New Hampshire, the loss of these grants means the loss of half of New Hampshire Humanities' (NHH) annual budget. For more specifics on how these cuts impact NHH, see the public statement they issued on April 3.
As many of you know, NHH has been a generous partner of the Whipple Free Library for years. Their Humanities To Go (HtG) program has sponsored numerous fascinating talks here, including:
NHH was also a major sponsor of the Big Read of The Bear by Andrew Krivak that New Boston participated in throughout Fall 2023. NHH funding helped pay for everything from the books we distributed (75 in total!) to the programs we presented (such as the insanely popular black bears talk with Ben Kilham). Without their support, the Whipple Free Library would never have been able to present such a rich array of dynamic programming.
On Monday, May 19, the library will present a talk by Jane Oneail on “Fierce Females: Women in Art.” This program is still being sponsored by NH Humanities To Go. Even though their grants have been terminated, they are honoring the grants they awarded with those funds. But this will be the last such program the library will host for the foreseeable future – without their federal funding, NHH will no longer be able to sponsor Humanities To Go events. It also seems unlikely that they’ll be able to sponsor the community-wide read that we’ve been working on behind the scenes for this Fall. These losses will be deeply felt at the Whipple Free Library. While we will never stop working to bring you quality programming, we simply cannot compensate for this loss of funding.
If you value the ways NHH enriches the library or if you support the humanities in general, please reach out to your federal representatives.
