Update: The lawmaker who proposed defunding the New Hampshire State Library walked back his plan on Tuesday. Rep. Joe Sweeney said “a more surgical approach” to funding cuts would make more sense as lawmakers attempt to balance the state budget. Sweeney stressed that many of the services at risk — including interlibrary loans and the Libby electronic lending app — are funded through federal programs that are now on the chopping block. Lawmakers are instead asking the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which oversees the state library, to cut their budget by $300,000 per year.
A wave of art organizations and libraries are speaking up to warn that federal and state cuts could impact the lives of Granite State citizens.
Those sounding the alarm include the New Hampshire Library Association and several local libraries, as well as cultural institutions like Arts4NH, the Capitol Center for the Arts and Prescott Park Arts Festival.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration released an executive order cutting the Institute for Museum and Library Services (also known as IMLS). The agency provides funding and grants to libraries and museums across the country, including New Hampshire, to help fund special projects, research and educational opportunities.
Additional cuts are now looming at the state level. A House committee working on state budget proposals voted in favor of eliminating funding for the Division of Arts, which helps provide funding to arts organizations and advance arts and culture in the state. They are also considering a proposal to shut down the New Hampshire State Library.
Rep. Joseph Sweeney, a Salem Republican who proposed those cuts on Monday, cited the loss in federal funding as part of his rationale, noting that the state wouldn’t be in a position to fill in the gaps. He also said the state library building in downtown Concord could be better used as office space.
“This is a budget in which we really need to identify what we need to fund in this state, and make reductions in the — what I would call — the optional, or the wants, of the state,” Sweeney said at the House Finance Division I committee on Monday.
Sweeney told his colleagues that he did not confer with the state library on its services before bringing the proposed cuts to the committee and noted the state librarian role is currently vacant. The previous state librarian retired in 2024, and former Gov. Chris Sununu pulled a nominee who drew conservative pushback over her opposition to book restrictions.
New Hampshire is home to the first state library ever instituted in the country. In addition to supporting library lending programs, the state library manages a variety of other programs and research databases, including those archiving historical records, government documents and other materials. It received $1.5 million from the IMLS program last year, according to a federal dashboard.
The New Hampshire State Council of the Arts also funded over $1.5 million in grants to arts organizations across the state in 2024, according to Arts4NH, an organization advocating for the state’s creative economy.
Libraries and museums consider the loss of state, federal support
The potential cuts at the federal and state level are sending shockwaves through New Hampshire’s literary and cultural communities.
Arts4NH estimates that arts programming contributes billions of dollars to the New Hampshire economy and represents some 21,000 jobs.
“Now is the time to advocate for the arts and remind our community, state, and federal leaders that arts and culture are essential—not only for creativity and cultural enrichment but for their economic and health benefits to our state,” the organization wrote in a recent call to action on social media.
According to local library officials, the federal funding from IMLS supported a range of programs, including offering books with braille and talking book services to assist readers with visual impairments, as well as providing New Hampshire library patrons with access to e-books and audiobooks through the Libby App. Portsmouth Public Library reported 17,000 borrows through the app last year, while Manchester City Library said its patrons borrowed an average of 6,000 titles per month.
The funding also supported high-speed internet access, STEM and job training programs, veterans’ telehealth spaces, and more, according to New Hampshire librarians.
Laura Horwood-Benton, the assistant director at the Portsmouth Public Library, said she’s especially concerned about the impact on inter-library loans. She said IMLS funding helped to make it possible for local libraries to share materials in different branches all across the state. Through that program, she said, the Portsmouth Public Library gave out roughly 2,700 books to library patrons in other communities last year.
“It makes it a much more equitable service across the state,” she said. “And it means that libraries can curate collections that are specific to their communities but also have access to a much wider range of materials including sometimes academic materials from state universities, as well.”
Horwood-Benton said the Portsmouth Public Library also relied on funding from IMLS to support administrative staff, van drivers. Without the funding, she said, the library is considering how they can continue to provide those services.
“What needs to be decided is whether the state can fund that service at a state level, and that is not clear,” Horton said. (Her comments came before Monday’s budget hearing where lawmakers discussed cutting state library funding.)
Horwood-Benton said they’re looking at the city budget, which will be up for discussion later this spring, to see whether they can find a means of funding many of the programs IMLS helped keep afloat. Without federal and state support, she said libraries throughout the state will be tasked with finding additional funding or looking at cutting programs.
“We would have to lose something in order to provide individual library funding for some of these services,” Horwood-Benton said. “So even if we're able to maintain an interlibrary loan, for example, that would be a loss from somewhere else.”
Nearby at the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, Executive Director Linnea Grim said at the moment the museum has the funding it needs — but she predicts that, in the long term, the loss of IMLS funding will force museums and art organizations to look to private donors. She predicts that the market for donations will get increasingly tight over time.
“I think that's one of the biggest challenges with the proposed funding cuts is that all the local nonprofits – we're all doing amazing work and amazing projects,” Grim said. “They're going to have to turn to private donors and foundations to try to fund that work, which means that competition is going to be all the higher. It means that they're gonna be some really good projects that end up without funding.”
Grim said now is the time for people to get out and support the arts. She's been encouraged to hear positive community feedback in response to a letter the museum issued about the federal cuts.
“I was really heartened by our members' reaction and the support for not only Strawbery Bank museum but museums and libraries throughout the state,” Grim said. “I see some positives and, and some hope there.”
