We have long thought of our newspaper as a kindred spirit to local libraries.

This is why we devote two full pages in each week’s edition to the libraries in our midst — from small rural libraries to large suburban ones.

Like our newspaper, a library builds community. Our libraries welcome everyone and provide services and programs that range from entertainment to helping with critical matters like finding a job or researching an illness.

But the most important — indeed essential — service that a library or a newspaper provides is access to information. Without a well-informed citizenry, a democracy — a government of the people, by the people, for the people, as Abraham Lincoln phrased it — cannot flourish.

So we listened with interest on April 16 as Congressman Paul Tonko held a roundtable discussion at the Bethlehem Public Library focused on President Donald Trump’s March 14 executive order, “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy,” that named the Institute of Museum and Library Services among seven agencies he determined were “unnecessary.”

To the four people addressing Tonko — Bethlehem’s library director, Geoffrey Kirkpatrick; Mary Fellows, interim director of the Upper Hudson Library System; AnnaLee Dragon, director of the New York State Library Association; and State Librarian Lauren Moore — the IMLS along with the support and funding it provided were essential.

The IMLS serves 35,000 museums and 123,000 libraries across the country, its website says; in 2024, it issued 633 grants to museums, libraries, and states totaling $270 million, distributing the congressionally approved funds across all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

“Libraries like this one,” Tonko said at the Bethlehem roundtable, “are living, breathing institutions that are essential to our health and strength as a democracy.”

IMLS grants have been terminated “in the dead of night,” the Democrat said, terming the approach to cuts “thoughtless.”

Dragon said, “When it comes to equity of access and an informed electorate, return on investment, and the freedom for people to access information they need, there’s no better investment than libraries.”

She noted that the state library is the hub and said, “If that money is pulled from the hub, the whole system faces potential collapse.”

During the pandemic, Moore said, “The state library was responsible for distributing additional federal funding to our library systems to make sure people had uninterruptible library services …. We were able to help move the needle on things like wi-fi hotspots … so that people could use the internet when the library was closed.”

Those innovations have stayed in place, Moore said; the expansion of library services from buildings to community connectors, she said, “is something I’m really nervous about losing.”

The state library, Moore said, is one of the largest and oldest research libraries in the nation. “We also operate the New York State Talking Book and Braille Library, which is a service that provides reading materials to people with print disabilities.”

“Knowledge is power,” said Kirkpatrick, stating that, because of the reach of the state library, Bethlehem patrons can get needed books. Those systems are tied together through federal funds, he said.

Libraries in rural areas are often the heart of a town, it was noted, and can be a lifeline for residents who don’t have internet at home.

Dragon said she had gotten a notice on a cancelation of funding just the day before — “in the evening, like you said, in the dead of night” — on which the association still has money outstanding.

“It’s studying the trauma that frontline library workers are facing with book bans and challenges and this increased politicization of libraries … Books have become political, right? That has led to a lot of public outbursts, issues at library events, and issues with books …. We’re not trained to deal with people screaming at us and threatening us. We’ve always been a trusted institution.”

“The treatment of libraries as something subversive reminds me of McCarthyism,” said Fellows, “and the idea of controlling the ideology and thinking that you can control what people read and therefore control what they think. Our country has always been based on the ideology of freedom to access information, to make your own decisions.

“So there is some amount of trying to paint libraries as a negative, scary, subversive thing when actually all we’re trying to do is offer access to all types of resources for all types of people. We don’t have an ideology of our own other than having an informed electorate, which is really important to a functional democracy.”

The librarians are right about the freedom to access information being essential to democracy.

Our nation is now at a crossroads where citizens need to understand that access to information is critical and speak out in favor of that access. Last November, Nieman Reports featured advice to American reporters from nine journalists abroad who had witnessed the rise of autocratic and populist leaders.

They warned of a characteristic of wounded democracies everywhere: an endangered free press.

Looking at just one nation, Hungary, under the autocratic leader Viktor Orbán, we can see parallels. Trump has frequently praised Orbán and invited him to the White House during his first term after the Obama administration had limited diplomatic ties with Hungary over concern that Orbán was undermining democratic values.

Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, called Orbán “Trump before Trump.”

“We must defend Hungary as it is now," Orbán said in a speech at the time. “We must state that we do not want to be diverse …. We do not want our own color, traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others.” 

Like Trump, Orbán has painted diversity as evil and labels critical coverage as fake news. 

 “History has taught us that even centuries-old institutions can crumble under the weight of political forces that are ruthless and have sufficient resources to carry out their plans,” wrote András Pethő to Nieman Reports. Pethő co-founded and directs Direkt36, an investigative journalism center in Hungary, which, unlike the majority of state-sanctioned media in Hungary, depends on membership for support.

Pethő wrote in 2022 of a Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest where Orbán openly spoke about how reshaping the media has been one of the keys to his power. “Have your own media,” he recommended to the audience full of American conservatives, adding that programs like Tucker Carlson’s Fox show “should be broadcasted day and night.”

At the same time, in 2022, the national library of Hungary was one of several cultural institutions attacked by the Orbán government.

The library had to move out of its grand home in the Buda Castle and many of its archives and institutes were given to pro-government institutions with questionable research credentials.

For example, the oral history archive of the 1956 revolution was taken away from the Széchenyi National Library and given to a government-controlled history research institute with doubtful academic credentials.

We must learn from what has happened in Hungary and other countries that function as democracies only on paper if we want to prevent the same fate.

Tonko told the roundtable panelists that, when Congress reconvenes after the Passover-Easter recess, “We’re going to be asked to support the undoing of public radio and public TV … I think of all the efforts to educate and inform through the library system and now you’re going to take another jewel.”

He said he went to visit the IMLS headquarters looking for answers but “couldn’t gain access.” Tonko couldn’t get in the door labeled “public access entry.” “I said, ‘Well, does that mean everybody but members of Congress?’”

Tonko said of Congress, “There’s an oversight requirement,” which he said the president is circumventing. Tonko then asked Moore, the state librarian, if she had heard anything about what may be maintained or if IMLS would just be discontinued.

“There’s no information coming out of the Institute for Museum and Library Services,” Moore replied, saying that is one of the frustrations. “There are a lot of questions and we have not received any answers,” she said.

If a representative from Congress, which is supposed to have oversight, cannot find out what is going on with cuts to an agency that affects his constituents, our democracy is in trouble. We call on citizens to pepper their representatives, in both parties, with questions on what is happening to IMLS and why.

Trump’s executive order says the president has determined the agency is unnecessary. We must speak out on the importance of libraries and of having information accessible.

Such advocacy is underway. “We’re just so grateful,” Moore said, “for all of the organizations and individuals that are getting the message out, whether it be our local public libraries or library systems, the New York Library Association, national organizations, the American Library Association. At every level, there are individuals and organizations speaking out, which gives me a lot of hope.”

Moore concluded, “I think the more people can share their stories and talk to the people that care and will listen, the better off we’ll be.”

So share your stories. We’ll publish them.

But also talk to your representatives and remind them that our Constitution calls for three branches of government yet Congress is ceding its power to the executive branch — with grave consequences.