Alaska librarians are cautiously optimistic that a state agency will restore a big cut in funding for an annual grant that smaller rural libraries depend on. The abrupt reversal of August's cutback followed an outcry by librarians and the public.
In August, the director of the Alaska Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums told librarians around the state that this year’s Public Library Assistance grants would be $1,829, about 75% smaller than what libraries have been getting for years. That worried the state’s librarians.
“A cut that massive, even though it’s a small grant, does have a pretty big impact on a small library in rural Alaska,” said Theresa Quiner, the director of the Kuskokwim Consortium Library in Bethel. She said that smaller libraries depend on the grant to buy books and other materials, and to pay expenses like electricity and heating.
“Yeah, I mean as somebody that runs a library with a really small budget and in rural Alaska, the cut was very alarming,” Quiner said. “And I can’t even imagine how much of an impact that would have on a really, really small library. Especially libraries that are volunteer-run.”
Soon after the Alaska Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums announced the cuts on Aug. 16, staff members of smaller libraries scrambled to figure out how they could cut their budgets to absorb that loss of funding. Some faced the possibility of shutting down.
“And so this cut was very unexpected,” Quiner added. “This is a grant that libraries have very reliably anticipated having each year. And so getting the cut midway, part-way through the fiscal year, was a shock.”
Quiner said that librarians mounted a campaign to get the word out about the cuts. In September, both Alaska Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums director Amy Phillips-Chan and Alaska Department of Education and Early Development Commissioner Deena Bishop sent letters to the librarians and others, including leaders of the state House and Senate, stating that they would find funding for the full $7,000 grant. The letters also said that libraries would get official notice of supplemental grants by Oct. 15. The division is part of the department.
“We just got that email a couple days ago, and so it seems as though the grant funding is being reinstated,” Quiner said. "And I personally am very overjoyed to hear that news.”
Phillips-Chan said in a follow-up email that “a grant payout to a library will be initiated after receiving a signed copy of the grant agreement from the library.”
Quiner, who’s also president-elect of the Alaska Library Association, attributed the state’s turnabout to the outcry raised by the public and her fellow librarians.
“I'm very grateful that so many librarians around the state with so much effort and advocacy for this,” Quiner said. “It just speaks a lot to the power of librarians and their ability to do research and advocate for the work that they do.”
Delta Junction Community Library Director Tiki Levinson said that the emails were encouraging, but that she’ll maintain a wait-and-see attitude until she gets one of those letters.
“It seems like there’s going to be some movement on this,” Levinson said. “And hopefully this funding will be restored, but it is not a done deal yet.”
If the full grant comes through, Levinson won’t have to make hard decisions on which services to cut back – including children’s programs, like Storytime, that are among the Delta Junction library’s most popular offerings.
