So, within the Trump administration framework, libraries are facing all sorts of problems.

Ohio is a very pro-library state but even that is being chipped away.

There would be physical space questions, there would be censorship questions, there would be collection development questions.

And it's just... a beast that we never had to tackle before.

I worked twenty-five years in retail.

And I wanted to take my service knowledge that I had from there, and apply it somewhere And I said “Where can I go use my customer service, my public service knowledge?” and the library was my answer to that question.

Yeah, I think it was just that I wanted to just do more for my community, and just be a bigger part of that.

And I felt that being a librarian, I would be able to actually impact my community and make a change.

It makes the day go by fast and it brings me a little bit of joy when I can help someone with what they need.

The library is a third space; It doesn't cost anything to be here.

Everyone is welcome here.

You don't have to buy a coffee to sit here for a couple of hours to use the Wi-Fi.

It's a place that there is no equivalency to.

It's an essential community asset that I think adds a lot to the quality of life living in a city.

Yeah, I mean, well, we do everything from, you know, getting you signed up for a passport, to helping you get your GED, to helping you with your family history, Someone could come in and sit down, and have someone help them with their resume, help them apply for jobs, or at least help them point them in the right direction.

So we're constantly offering types of services that you wouldn't think of.

If you had all the resources that you needed to buy every book, every movie, every CD, every digital media that you wanted, you don't know that the library offers those for free, and that it is the only way people- some people access certain things.

On a local level, here in Ohio, Recently some proposals have been made to cut public library funding.

I grew up about ten minutes from Main Library in Akron, and I spent probably three afternoons a week here.

I grew up with very little resources, but my mom valued learning, and so I came here to get access to all of the things that we weren't able to have access to at home.

It ended up paying off for me: I graduated two years early, and I have several degrees now, and I do attribute all of, all of my passions, my interests, all that and having access to the items here at Akron Library.

So nationally, public libraries are facing cuts because we're in an economic downturn.

That is undeniable.

And it's just something that I think is a result of many factors.

And a lot of the conversation in this country has shifted toward cutting things that are seen as non-essential.

There's a certain.

There's a certain privilege that comes with thinking that libraries are not important.

Hi, I'm John Crastka, and I'm executive director for EveryLibrary and EveryLibrary Institute.

Quite a bit with, legislation and public policy issues and, the occasional issue in Congress, which has gotten more and more complicated during the Trump administration.

Politically, the Trump administration, has issued a couple of different executive orders.

The one that impacts the Institute of Museum and Library Services, ones that impact the National Archives...

There's one that was recently issued that was, impacting the Smithsonian Institution.

And you've already seen, how the Trump administration has behaved in more discretionary ways around the Kennedy Center and other arts.

Where it impacts right now locally: Right now in Florida, there's been a, local district attorney and a local state senator.

Who are sending letters to libraries to say that, you have to remove the LGBTQ materials because President Trump's agenda for the federal government means that local libraries cannot collect materials that are diverse or equitable or inclusive.

That has a chilling effect.

The State Library of Alabama just cut off funding for a local library called Fairhope.

they cut off the funding because the library board wouldn't remove the books about LGBTQ populations.

Books that are constitutionally protected.

They would cut off 100% of it if they could’ve.

So, the recent state funding issue that has been in the news for Ohio libraries...

The basics of this issue are the governor proposed a budget for the 2026 fiscal year and the 2027 fiscal year of a certain monetary amount.

Over the course of those two years of library funding, they would cut more than $100 million to public libraries in Ohio.

As we’re talking now, that issue has passed the Ohio representatives.

So the budget cuts would take effect immediately, and it would affect every public library in Ohio.

People think there's only so much money to go around, right?

Why do public libraries deserve it more than, I don't know, some other entity?

But the reality is, the things that we offer- we offer more than just the materials, the databases we have.

It would be extremely difficult for people with limited resources to have access to the things that the library is able to provide.

You know, you think, books, you think movies, music, things like that.

But it's a lot bigger than that.

We have- Librarians are trained to run programs, and we have a lot of community partnerships that help out the community.

These are people who are very driven, who have dedicated their careers to helping the public.

For every dollar that you invest in a public library, there's a five, seven, $10 return on communities.

And that's an economic conversation.

But every dollar you invest in collections for pre-K readiness or summer learning, every dollar you invest in a staff that can help communities figure out, you know, what they're looking for, the information that they need- the enjoyment they want- Those are immeasurable kinds of calculations.

We fear a little more what will happen to smaller libraries, your rural ones, your inner city independent libraries.

There are these small communities that are outside of a metro- a metropolitan city.

They're not going to be able to be serviced by those large systems.

There's libraries, smaller, independents and other systems get a larger portion of their overall funding from the state.

So deep cuts to those could be catastrophic.

So we did a call for letter writing.

We did a digital campaign, a print campaign.

It was very comprehensive.

And every public library in Ohio gathered together, borrowed language from the Ohio Library Council to really understand these very complicated facts, to make it digestible to understand why they needed to reach out to the representatives.

We heard directly from representatives that phone lines were jammed, emails were blowing up.

And, we know that they were not prepared for the response that they got.

Libraries are super important.

They are absolutely necessary in any community.

We’re just there to offer free resources so that you know, people can come and enrich themselves.

And, through enriching themselves, they can enrich their communities, and if we all have better or stronger communities, everything starts to look better for everyone.

Please reach out, call your your senators.

Just explaining to them what libraries mean to you.

And, I would love to see obviously continued support- financially and by the community.

The more people use our services, the more support we have for those services at the way the funding works.

But there's also a inclusivity to library collections in particular.

A book can be relevant to a protected minority class, and not be of interest or even comfortable to the majority.

And I think there's something very American about that.

And yet, those protected classes about gender, sexuality, even religion are being attacked in very significant ways through the Trump- by the Trump administration through these executive orders.