US libraries cut ebook and audiobook lending programs following Trump executive order
In the latest episode of How to Dismantle Public Services in 12 Easy Steps , a Trump executive order targeting libraries has real-world consequences. The AP reported over the weekend that libraries across the country are cutting programs that offer ebooks, audiobooks and other loan programs. These initiatives exploded in popularity following the pandemic, with over 660 million people globally borrowing them in 2023 — a 19 percent annual increase.
The cuts and slashing of grants followed a Trump executive order issued on March 14 targeting the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). His appointee to helm the agency, Keith E. Sonderling, quickly signaled that he was there to do the president's bidding. He placed the IMLS's entire staff on administrative leave, sent termination notices to most of them, canceled grants and contracts and fired everyone on the National Museum and Library Services Board.
Federal judges have temporarily blocked the administration from further gutting the IMLS. But while lawsuits from 21 states and the American Library Association make their way through the courts, the agency's federal funding remains frozen. And libraries are scrambling to adjust.
If you've ever used your library to borrow an ebook or audiobook through an app like Libby or Hoopla, there's a good chance federal funding made that possible. Libraries purchase digital leases for ebooks and audiobooks from publishers, enabling them to lend titles to patrons. The leases typically cost much more than physical copies and must be renewed after a set period or number of checkouts.
With library digital borrowing surging, those federal funds went a long way toward keeping the programs afloat. Mississippi has indefinitely suspended its Hoopla-based lending program.
The IMLS was created in 1996 by a Republican-controlled US Congress. The agency has an annual budget of under $300 million, with nearly half of that amount allocated to state libraries, which, in turn, help fund local libraries' digital lending programs. "The small library systems are not able to pay for the ebooks themselves," Rebecca Wendt, California's state library director, told the AP .
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
29 minutes ago
- USA Today
Can Donald Trump run for president in 2028? Constitution sets two-term limit
President Trump has remained a divisive figure, prompting mass protests and receiving low approval ratings. Can he run again in 2028? Does he want to? Protesters in some cities took to the streets on June 22 after President Donald Trump's decision to bomb three nuclear facilities in Iran. It was far from the first protest against Trump's actions since he took office in January, and far more Americans have protested since the beginning of this year than during the same time frame in his first term in office or during President Joe Biden's first year in office. Trump is one of two presidents in U.S. history to serve nonconsecutive terms, and his approval ratings remain historically low. But back in the White House, he has toyed with the prospect of running for a third term, which is barred by the U.S. Constitution. Most recently, he said he was not considering it. Still, the Trump Organization sells "Trump 2028" hats. Here is what to know. What is Iran's next move? World awaits response to U.S. bombing: Live updates Can Donald Trump run for president in 2028? Under the Constitution as it stands, Donald Trump cannot be elected to a third term. It is explicitly barred by the 22nd Amendment. Changes to the Constitution are extremely difficult and rare, as they require a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate. States can also spur an amendment, but it requires two-thirds of the state legislatures to call a constitutional convention and three-fourths to ratify it. Trump won the 2016 presidential election against Hillary Clinton, becoming the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. He then lost the 2020 election against Biden. Trump won the 2024 election. At first, Trump was up for a rematch before Biden dropped his reelection bid and was replaced on the Democratic ticket by former Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump won the election, and his second term as the 47th U.S. president is slated for 2025 to 2029. What has Trump said about a potential third term? Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of a third term throughout his second presidency. In a March NBC interview, he said there are methods to make it happen, including if Vice President JD Vance runs for office and then hands the role to Trump. In a later interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" that aired on May 4, Trump backed off the idea, saying he was not looking at running again. "I will say this. So many people want me to do it. I have never had requests so strong as that," Trump said in the interview with NBC. "But it's something that, to the best of my knowledge, you're not allowed to do. I don't know if that's constitutional that they're not allowing you to do it or anything else." The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the "Trump 2028" hats. Only one president has served more than two terms America's founding father and first president, President George Washington, voluntarily stepped down after two terms, creating an unofficial tradition for future presidents to follow suit. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first and only president to break that tradition. The country was still recovering from the Great Depression, and at the dawn of World War II, he was re-elected to his third term. After leading the country through the global war, he was elected again in 1944, but died the following year. A movement in the House of Representatives to officially limit the presidency terms, now ratified as the 22nd Amendment, began two years after Roosevelt's death. Contributing: Riley Beggin, Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@ Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @
San Francisco Chronicle
31 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
NATO chief says Ukraine remains vital at summit despite Zelenskyy's absence from leaders' meeting
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte insisted Monday Ukraine would remain a vital topic at an alliance summit this week despite President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's absence from a leaders' meeting aiming to seal an agreement to boost military spending. 'You will see important language about Ukraine, including connecting the defense spending up to 2035 to Ukraine, and the need for Ukraine to stay in the fight,' Rutte told reporters on the eve of the two-day summit. 'This is a clear commitment by allies.' But the Ukrainian leader hasn't yet publicly confirmed he'll attend a dinner laid on for leaders attending the NATO summit, where his country has had a diplomatic downgrade from previous alliance meetings, even as leaders stress that their militaries need to muscle up to counter the threat of Russia. It's a big change since the summit in Washington last year, when the military alliance's weighty communique included a vow to supply long-term security assistance to Ukraine, and a commitment to back the country 'on its irreversible path' to NATO membership. But with Zelenskyy's relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump still strained since a testy Oval Office meeting earlier this year, finding a place for the Ukrainian leader at NATO's top table has proved a bridge too far. There are other meetings scheduled for Zelenskyy at the summit, but the doors remain shut to the leaders' working meeting Wednesday, even as Rutte acknowledged how heavily the war weighs on the leaders. 'Of course, the most significant and direct threat facing this alliance remains the Russian Federation," he said. "Moscow continues to wage war against Ukraine with the support of North Korea, Iran and China, as well as Belarus.' European allies and Canada, 'will provide over €35 billion of additional security assistance to Ukraine for the year ahead,' he said. 'So in a couple of months, we went from €20 billion to €35 billion. And I think that is great news.' Meanwhile, Moscow bombarded Ukraine with 352 drones and decoys, as well as 11 ballistic missiles and five cruise missiles overnight Monday, Ukraine's air force said, killing at least 14 people and injuring several dozen others.
USA Today
31 minutes ago
- USA Today
The U.S. helped oust an Iranian regime before. Here's what happened in 1953.
In the days following the U.S. strikes in Iran, President Donald Trump has threatened to depose Iran's leader and institute a regime change, igniting debates over interventionism and resurfacing memories of the last time America helped topple a government in Iran decades ago. 'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on June 22. Live updates: What is Iran's next move? World awaits response to U.S. bombing Trump's post came after officials in his administration, including U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, took much different tones, saying they were not working to overthrow Iran's government and do not want a regime change. As next steps remain unclear, the specter of American involvement in a plan to depose the Iranian regime raises immediate comparisons to Iran's 1953 coup, when American and British intelligence agencies aided in the forced removal of a democratically elected leader. While the current crisis is a far cry from the domestic and international events surrounding the 1953 coup, talk of regime change evokes memories of the U.S.-backed operation that had far-reaching effects in Iran and across the region more than 70 years ago. Here's what to know about what happened then. More: The risks for Trump of 'regime change' in Iran: Just ask George W. Bush Iran and the U.S.—were they always adversarial? As the Cold War took hold in the 1950s, Washington relied on Iran's reigning Shah to help stem Soviet influence spreading further in the oil-producing Middle East. The British had relied on nearly unfettered access to the Iranian oil industry via the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, later to become BP. US Iran strikes: What does regime change mean? Trump comments on Iran leadership But Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his monarchist rule were growing unpopular at home among Iranians, and in 1951, Mohammad Mossadegh was elected as prime minister. Shortly after, he nationalized Iranian oil production in a bid to reclaim the country's oil industry and profits from significant foreign control. What led to the 1953 coup in Iran? Britain, shut out from Iranian oil, leaned on the U.S. for assistance. The American government at the time worried that Mossadegh's government signaled an end to Western footholds in the region in the face of Cold War-era anxieties and the USSR's push to expand its influence. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrated the overthrow of Mossadegh in 'Operation Ajax,' led by senior officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr., grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. It led to the overthrow of Mossadegh, who went on trial and was sentenced to house arrest, and restored and centralized power to Pahlavi. He would become the last Shah of Iran. The National Security Archive in 2013 officially acknowledged the U.S.'s role in the coup when it released declassified CIA documents on the operation. Learn more about Iran: 11 facts about the country following US strikes on three of its nuclear sites 'The 1953 coup remains a topic of global interest because so much about it is still under intense debate,' Malcolm Byrne of the National Security Archive wrote alongside the 2013 release. 'Even fundamental questions — who hatched the plot, who ultimately carried it out, who supported it inside Iran, and how did it succeed — are in dispute.' Journalist Stephen Kinzer said in his 2003 book 'All the Shah's Men' that the 1953 coup was a 'great trauma for Iran, the Middle East, and the colonial world,' marking the first time the U.S. overthrew a foreign government and altering how millions, especially in the region, saw the United States. How did the US-Iranian relationship play out after the coup? Iranians overthrew the Shah in 1979, and the Islamic revolutionaries who took over accused the CIA of having trained the Shah's secret police and vowed to battle Western imperialism in the region. They branded America 'the Great Satan,' a nickname that endures to this day. In November 1979, revolutionary students seized the American embassy and took dozens of diplomats and other staff hostage for more than a year. Known as the Iran hostage crisis, it marked the end of a strategic alliance between the U.S. and the Shah's regime, ushering in a new age of hostility between the two nations. The 1953 coup loomed large in the revolution's rhetoric. The lasting impact of the 1953 coup While the U.S. and Iran have butt heads over a range of issues since the 1979 revolution and hostage crisis, including years of strife over Iran's nuclear program, the 1953 coup remains a critical event still invoked in modern Iran. Iranian historian Ervand Abrahamian writes in his 2013 book about the crisis that the coup had lasting impacts on American foreign policy and U.S.-Iranian relations and cast its 'darkest shadow' over Iran itself. 'The coup left a deep imprint on the country—not only on its polity and economy but also on its popular culture and what some would call mentality,' Abrahamian said in 'The Coup.' Contributing: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY; Reuters. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr.
