Distress for Lancaster County museums and libraries as Trump dismantles federal agency

• By Sarah Nicell/LNP | LancasterOnline

Museum admission discounts for low-income families. Digital reading materials during the COVID-19 pandemic. Funding to recruit new education staff.

These are just some of the resources the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services has long provided in Lancaster County.

Now, local museum and library leaders aren’t sure what will happen to that support.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month that directed IMLS and six other federal agencies to “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” This week, IMLS placed its entire 70-member staff on administrative leave.

LancasterHistory President Robin Sarratt said she called U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker’s office several times this week to figure out where to file reporting requirements for her museum’s $250,000 federal grant because no employees exist to accept them.

Smucker’s office was unaware IMLS had placed all employees on leave, Sarratt said, and she has yet to find out who she should contact in the interim.

Smucker’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The money, awarded by IMLS in 2022, allowed LancasterHistory to hire an accessibility consultant for their new Thaddeus Stevens-Lydia Hamilton Smith museum in Lancaster.

The museum will have Braille scripts and tactile maps and offer audio storytelling in every exhibit when it opens next spring. Wheelchair users will find the layout uniquely configured to their needs.

Without the IMLS grant, LancasterHistory would have sought funding from donors. Still, Sarratt said, few support systems can compare to the federal agency.

“There’s no equivalent,” Sarratt said. “There’s no organization that’s as supportive and powerful across the board.”

Museums for All

Seven Lancaster County museums participate in Museums for All, an IMLS program that allows museums nationwide to offer free or reduced admission rates to low-income families.

Almost one-quarter of visitors at Hands-on House in Manheim Township paid the discounted fee, $3, last fiscal year. They can join the museum’s science, art and reading programs the same as visitors who pay the standard admission rate, $12 for children and $10.50 for adults.

“Museums provide a valuable third space for children between homes and schools to allow children to learn in ways they wouldn’t have the possibility to,” said Rebecca Ackerman, executive director of the children’s experiential learning museum.

Hands-on House has received no word on whether Museums for All will go away. If it does, Ackerman worries museum donors will be stretched too thin when more nonprofits need philanthropic support.

Her team already has begun considering new strategies, including allowing visitors to choose to pay more for their visit to subsidize another visitor’s admission. They might even host more birthday parties.

LancasterHistory in Lancaster Township, Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum in Manheim Township, and Winters Heritage House Museum in Elizabethtown participate in Museums for All. North Museum of Nature and Science in Lancaster has offered free admission to 1,777 low-income visitors covered by the program since last April.

Kim Jovinelli, executive director of the Lancaster Medical Heritage Museum in Lancaster, said her museum last year joined the Museums for All program, which is tied to Pennsylvania’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Jovinelli has given free admission to anyone who has shown their SNAP card ever since.

Jovinelli said talks scheduled with the museum’s grant writer this week have to change. The museum, open to the public only since December 2022, has never applied for an IMLS grant, but it was considering doing so.

“Now we’re going to have to retool how we approach that,” she said.

Grants

IMLS has allocated $28.8 million to Pennsylvania museums and libraries since 2020 as part of its Grants to States program.

Karla Trout, executive director of Library System of Lancaster County, said that money has allowed the Pennsylvania Office of Commonwealth Libraries to provide guidance to local libraries, pay for electronic resources and provide grants that fund technological advancements to library databases.

The dollars also pay for simple tasks, such as paying the U.S. Postal Service to ship a book from one library to another.

“If we have to pay for that shipping directly, we could never afford it,” Trout said.

Other grant programs, including Museums Empowered and the American Rescue Plan for Museums and Libraries, gave $335,000 to LancasterHistory, Lancaster Public Library and the Library System of Lancaster County in 2022.

It’s not much money in the grand scheme of things. IMLS makes up only .0046% of the overall federal budget, according to a statement from the American Alliance of Museums. LancasterHistory’s 2022 grant was one of only 20 Museums Empowered grants distributed that year.

But the grants have made a difference.

One pandemic-era award to the library system brought back a program that taught literacy skills to children at home-based daycare centers. Library staffers came to their homes in a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van decked out with preschool curriculum materials.

A past grant helped LancasterHistory hire new staff. Another grant to Lancaster Public Library doubled the library’s availability of free e-books, audiobooks, movies and music as digital demand skyrocketed during the pandemic.

Executive Director Lissa Holland said the grant money and other IMLS initiatives have helped underfunded libraries like them. The dismantling of IMLS, Holland said, is a push to create an uneducated population.

“They don’t want people to have the ability to get information and think on their own,” she said. “It’s ‘1984’ in reality.”

The fates of smaller IMLS programs are unknown, too.

The North Museum has twice participated in the Collections Assessment for Preservation program. It funds building and conservation assessments for small- to medium-size museums, according to CEO Andrea Rush.

Rush’s application for this year, already completed, is now on hold. The submission aimed to focus on a conservation plan for fossils, geological specimens and one-of-a-kind objects, Rush said via email.

“Many of our collection objects directly relate to the history of Lancaster itself,” Rush said. “The loss of this funding has a direct impact on our ability to sustain and preserve our natural and cultural heritage.”