🔥 The beacons are lit; the library calls for aid

The Trump administration has issued an executive order aimed at dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services - the ONLY federal agency for America's libraries.

Using just 0.003% of the federal budget, the IMLS funds services at libraries across the country; services like Braille and talking books for the visually impaired, high-speed internet access, and early literacy programs.

How You Can Help:

🔥 Call your congressperson!

Use the app of your choice or look 'em up here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

Phones a total no-go? The American Library Association has a form for you: https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=23577

🔥Tell your friends!

Tell strangers, for that matter. People in line at the check out, your elderly neighbor, the mail carrier - no one is safe from your library advocacy. Libraries are for everyone and we need all the help we can get.

...Wait, why do we need this IMLS thing again?

The ALA says it best in their official statement and lists some ways libraries across the country use IMLS funding:

But if you want a really specific answer, here at LCPL we use IMLS funding to provide our amazing interlibrary loan service. If we can't purchase an item you request (out of print books, for example) this service lets us borrow it from another library and check it out to you.

IMLS also funds the statewide Indiana Digital Library and Evergreen Indiana, which gives patrons of smaller Indiana libraries access to collections just as large and varied as the big libraries' collections.

As usual, cutting this funding will hurt rural communities the most - but every library user will feel it one way or another. Let's let Congress know that's unacceptable.

Anyone reading any good books lately?

I've started to dip my toes into horror. I'm never going to be a slasher fan but I'm starting to enjoy some spooky shit. Last night I just finished reading A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher and I really loved it. Between that and What Moves the Dead/What Feasts at Night, Kingfisher is very good at writing first person narrators that I just really click with.

It was very refreshing after reading a murder mystery that really dissapointed me and IMO wasted its premise with the least curious main character possible...and she hardly even talked to the ghosts that were advertised on the back of the book. I've had such bad luck when I pick out books at random when I'm at the library but I will continue to do that anyway. If you have any recs for good books with ghosts in them PLEASE I LOVE GHOSTS

But yeah, what are yall reading? :]

OOOO so many cool recs in the reblogs and replies, I'm putting so many of these on my list, thanks so much! And I love hearing about what everyone's been reading!

If I can remember I might make this a weekly thing, we can have our own little book club on a post :D

on it 🫡 🌈 📚

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it is a truth universally acknowledged that having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card

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💀✨I'M HAVING CASH TROUBLE AGAIN✨💀 🎉SO HERE'S ANOTHER COMMISSION POST🎉

I AM NO LONGER HOMELESS. BUT I'M GETTING FUCKED OVER BY THE GOVERNMENT AND HAVE UNTIL THE 1ST TO MAKE £300 TOWARDS RENT

SO REMINDER THAT MY COMMS ARE OPEN.

SO OPEN. SLUTTILY OPEN. THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE OPEN. SO OPEN THAT THEY'RE GONNA GET DONE FOR PUBLIC INDECENCY!

I HAVE A KOFI.

YOU CAN ORDER COMMS OFF ME THERE, OR YOU CAN MESSAGE ME HERE IF YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING THAT REQUIRES MORE DISCUSSION. YOU COULD ALSO BE VERY LOVELY AND JUST BUY ME A KOFI<3

Ok I'm done yelling, here's my comms sheet, please share, love you and take care🖤🖤🖤

💀✨I'M HAVING CASH TROUBLE AGAIN✨💀 🎉SO HERE'S ANOTHER COMMISSION POST🎉

I AM NO LONGER HOMELESS. BUT I'M GETTING FUCKED OVER BY THE GOVERNMENT AND HAVE UNTIL THE 1ST TO MAKE £300 TOWARDS RENT

SO REMINDER THAT MY COMMS ARE OPEN.

SO OPEN. SLUTTILY OPEN. THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE OPEN. SO OPEN THAT THEY'RE GONNA GET DONE FOR PUBLIC INDECENCY!

I HAVE A KOFI.

YOU CAN ORDER COMMS OFF ME THERE, OR YOU CAN MESSAGE ME HERE IF YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING THAT REQUIRES MORE DISCUSSION. YOU COULD ALSO BE VERY LOVELY AND JUST BUY ME A KOFI<3

Ok I'm done yelling, here's my comms sheet, please share, love you and take care🖤🖤🖤

it just feels right when a librarian is a lesbian. like yea, that's how it's supposed to be

I'm already seeing advice from people in the US to purchase queer books and other banned or "controversial" books on paper as a way to combat the wave of government censorship that is coming. While this is a good idea (it is! absolutely!), it's not accessible to everyone, and truly, we're not going to be able to consumerism our way out of this one.

If you can buy the books, do. Whether you can buy the books or not, borrow them from your library.

Borrow the paper versions. Borrow the ebook or audiobook versions. Request the titles you want that your library doesn't have. The more a title circulates or is requested, the better librarians are going to be able to defend keeping it if and when it's ever challenged.

Use libraries like @queerliblib too. The more members they have, the better they'll be able to fundraise.

Your community resources depend on you using them. Borrow the books before they go away.

InB4: Piracy is not the solution here. We're trying to keep community resources available, not make sure individual people can read individual books. Different problems.

The books are still available. Borrowing them from your library and returning them on time and in good condition will help keep them that way.

This this this!

Libraries and librarians are going to be under attack in the coming years.

Please help us by showing the people in charge that these materials are important in the only way they really understand - the number of checkouts.

We need your help now more than ever.

For some additional context, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is the primary funding mechanism for libraries on a national level. It distributes grants to State Libraries (every state has one, though it may not be called exactly that) who then distribute that money further to individual libraries in their states. It's a federal entity that has to be reauthorized every year or that huge chunk of funding goes away, and every year of the first Trump administration the fight for reauthorization was a white-knuckle event. We got it through by the skin of our teeth each year, but it was harrowing.

Libraries are mentioned on page one of Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership (the big book of horrible policy plans). Choosing not to reauthorize the IMLS will be an easy way for the incoming administration to gut library services nationwide, especially in small communities that don't have a thriving donor base to fill those budget gaps. They'll be able to stop the "porn peddlers" and "groomers" at the cost of vital services to those communities.

One of the best tools we have to try and avoid that outcome is to prove, definitively, that libraries matter by presenting robust use statistics. Checking out books, using library spaces, attending library programs, all of that gets captured and reported to the IMLS each year. They're imperfect measures of the value the library provides to the community, but they're what we have.

At the local level it's going to be just as, if not more important to educate the community about what the library does. Your local governing authorities aren't going to be persuaded by the librarian alone, but they can be persuaded by vocal community support. That will also inoculate your community against "grassroots" attempts to shut the library down, like almost happened in Dayton, Washington in 2023.

To bring it back around to OP's original point, the imperfect nature of the stats gathered can work in libraries' favor on both fronts. It might actually be detrimental to present record-breaking circulation numbers for queer titles to the incoming administration, but the IMLS doesn't collect that level of detail. Any book you check out adds to the bottom line total that gets reported, queer or not. At the local level librarians have more control over the stories they tell with their data. If you're in a progressive community, they can be open with those more granular numbers as a way to underscore their importance as a resource to queer community. If you're in a conservative community they can lean on the bigger picture to show the impact on everyone, while knowing internally what materials are actually circulating and how best to curate the collection to serve their patrons.

if you're feeling powerless right now—and god knows I am—here's a reminder you can donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, the Trans Law Center, Gaza Soup Kitchen, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and hundreds of other charities that will work to mitigate the damage that has been and will continue to be inflicted

life continues. we still have the capacity to do good, important work. that matters

I hope none of you disappear in the coming days. Seriously don't do anything that can't be undone.

I know i'm just a random person you follow online but I mean it. People (all kinds of marginalised people too!) Have survived all types of horrible times and managed to find happiness eventually. If for no one else, survive for them. And also, try to survive because the people making you despair don't want you to live. Don't give this to them. Don't give your life. The best thing you can do is cling to it with everything you've got. Lay in bed for a day if you have to. but please promise you won't hurt yourself.

Take screen breaks, (now more than ever!!) Meet up, Call your friends, call your family if you're on good terms. Spend time with pets. Text your favourite mutual you never speak to if you've got no one irl. Hell, log on a minecraft server if nothing else. Or rewatch your favourite show.

Make sure you eat enough and sleep enough, and take the meds and vitamins that you need. Don't believe anything you think if you're hungry and tired and have been scrolling too long.

Get a therapy appointment if you think you need it.

You can absolutely not take any shortcuts when it comes to your wellbeing right now.

We don’t have a uniform, why do you ask?

Inspired by our friends at Rapid City Public Library (link goes to TikTok). Music only - sound not needed.

Music credit: George Street Shuffle Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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Librarians 🤫

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the anniversary of library paste man’s death is in four days.

the anniversary of the library paste man’s death is today

Certified death of library paste man post

people who say it's difficult to get into comics are weak and won't survive the winter. you pick a random comic, google "read online free" and then you read a hundred issues of a run you'll like well enough but realize really sucks like two years later.

I want to add CHECK YOUR LIBRARY!!!! So many comics for free and a lot in the USA use a system called hoopla where you can digitally rent comics too…. If you want to read comics free and are too scared to do it online go to the library. Also just go to the library in general what a great institution

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