Tag: Archival News and Highlights

IMLS Restores Competitive Grant Funding

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Earlier this month, as a result of the hard work and conviction of 21 State Attorneys General in the State of Rhode Island v. Trump case, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) restored grants previously impacted by Executive Order 14238.

Summary

President Trump’s March 14, 2025, executive order directing seven congressionally created agencies, including the IMLS and the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), to cut their operations and expenditures to only those explicitly required by statute. Twenty-one U.S. states, which received hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and funding from the curtailed agencies and worked closely alongside those agencies on matters of commerce and education, alleged that Trump’s executive order violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the Appropriations Clause, and separation of powers. (State of Rhode Island v. Trump)

Why It Matters

  • This decision impacts all states, not just the 21 states involved in the case.
  • The IMLS awarded $266 million in grants to museums and libraries in 2024.
  • IMLS can fulfill its congressional mandate and fund the grants.
  • The Grants to States program helps small and rural libraries provide services for its patrons.
  • It challenges state’s legislatures attempting to apply similar funding cuts.

Everyone has their story about what archival research impacted them, what library services helped them, and what museum experiences fostered their curiosity. Each person’s reason for caring about libraries is well worth advocating!

Action

Now that you have the information take action to continue the momentum of this judicial success!

Start with a thank you!
If you live in New York, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, or Wisconsin, you can thank your Attorney General for their work on this case and tell them why it matters to you.

Not sure what to say? Keep it simple!

Dear Attorney General [last name],
As a constituent I feel so proud of your hard work on behalf of libraries, archives, and museums across the country.
This is important because [impact/story].
Again, thank you so much for commitment and advocacy on this issue.

Let other elected officials know this matters to you!
Write to (or call if that is your thing!) your other elected officials to tell them about this great success (especially if your state did not participate in the case), why it matters to you, and share that you hope to see them support future efforts to block similar infringements on integral agencies!

Not sure what to write? Keep it simple!

Dear [legislator/official],
As your constituent, I wanted to bring an important issue to your attention. [1-2 sentence summary].
This is important because [impact/personal story].
Please [call to action].
Thank you for your time on this issue.

Share your story!
The funding and staffing cuts for the IMLS resulted in massive problems for organizations depending on these grants. Projects were left in various states of completion, staff were put on leave or terminated, and the future of acquisitions, discovery, and use of materials were put at risk. If you were impacted by any of the federal reduction in force or eliminating budgets, this is the time to share that story! Engage your community by writing to newspapers and contacting outlets. Examples of federal impact stories can be found here.

This work is far from over but we can and should celebrate every victory along the way! Stay tuned as FY 2026 appropriations are still uncertain. Be ready to use your voice to advocate for yourselves, each other, and the profession!

Keeping ArchivesAWARE: News and Highlights

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This is the latest entry in our series Keeping ArchivesAWARE: News and Highlights, a recurring roundup of some of the latest archives-related news stories, features, commentaries, announcements, and projects that have caught our eye, with links to the original sources. This post written by COPA member Nick Pavlik.

Jody Rosen writes in a recent New York Times Magazine feature about the disastrous 2008 fire at a Universal Studios Hollywood warehouse that served as the vault for the most historically significant master recordings of the Universal Music Group, in which approximately 175,000 master recordings were destroyed.

A Europol press release details how three men were arrested in France last month for stealing rare maps from archival collections from different libraries throughout Europe.

NPR reports that while digitizing a collection at Mexico’s National Sound Library, archivists came across a recording containing a voice they believe may be that of celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

New Hampshire State Archivist Brian Burford was recently featured in an article in the Concord Monitor, in which he warned of the risk posed to the state’s digital records in the absence of a statewide digital preservation program.

The New York Times recently featured an article on the donation of Nachman Blumental’s personal papers to the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.  Blumental, a philologist and one of the earliest historians of the Holocaust, documented how the Nazis’ “used the German language to obscure the mechanics of mass murder and make genocide more palatable to themselves.”

In The Conversation, Axel Bruns writes about the National Library of Australia’s newly launched Australian Web Archive, and the immense web archiving challenges the Library will continue to face going forward.

The University of Pittsburgh Library System recently acquired the archive of legendary horror filmmaker George A. Romero, which will serve as the foundation for a larger horror studies archive that the university intends to establish within its Archives & Special Collections.

The Monuments Men Foundation recently donated the diary of S. Lane Faison to the National Archives.  Faison, a member of the “Monuments Men” unit during World War II, supervised the return of millions of historical artifacts stolen by the Nazis to their countries of origin.

Controversy recently arose at Doane University in Nebraska after the director of the university’s Perkins Library was placed on administrative leave after including a photograph showing students wearing blackface in a “Parties from the Past” exhibit outside the library.

The CBC recently reported on the launch of a new website from the City of Edmonton Archives that provides access to thousands of digitized historical photographs from the Archives’ collection.

At the end of May, the New York Times reported that the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture had acquired the personal collection of Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite, the original host of “Yo! MTV Raps,” which first aired in 1988.

Have some interesting archival news items or highlights you’d like us to share?  Email us at archivesaware@archivists.org and we may include it in our next Keeping ArchivesAWARE roundup!