Several library directors from the region, including Leland Township’s Mark Morton, Suttons Bay-Bingham District’s Nellie Danke, and Traverse Area District’s Michele Howard, traveled to the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing for Library Advocacy Day on April 30 .
The Michigan library community meets with legislators every year to advocate for library funding and support, and are able to share things like their library’s impact in the community and the many services they provide. This year’s Michigan Library Association (MLA) advocacy day theme was “libraries light the way!” As part of the day’s activities, the MLA arranges legislative visits with library director’s area representatives, senators, and staffers to discuss hopes and concerns.
Morton, Danke, Howard, and other library staff from the Grand Traverse/Leelanau region and surrounding areas met with legislators like Rep. Betsy Coffia, as well as staff from Sen. John Damoose’s office.
It was the first time Morton attended an advocacy day at the Capitol. He said normally the schedule includes a list of things to talk about, like book bans and other issues, but this year they focused on one of their biggest concerns for the future: The defunding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and what the state can do to help pick up the slack from the loss of these crucial funds.
On March 14, President Trump signed an executive order that called for the elimination and reduction of seven government entities, including the IMLS. The federal agency is responsible for distributing congressionally approved funds to state libraries and to library, museum, and archives program grant recipients in all 50 states and U.S. territories. Michigan received about $8.2 million for 23 IMLS awards in 2024 alone, with the majority of that funding going towards grants, museum and library services.
“The biggest problem is that the state of Michigan, 40% of the budget comes from the federal government, so it’s been getting cut all over the place,” Morton explained. “So there are a lot of constituents talking to their representatives about funding that they had cut to try to get restored. We were just a few voices among many in terms of what the legislators are hearing about funding cuts… the representatives love libraries and they know what they do for communities, so they were very attentive and they listened.”
Potential federal funding cuts are being taken into consideration as Michigan legislators are currently in the middle of working through the state’s 2026 budget process, with the new fiscal year set to begin on Oct. 1. “They are (state legislators) requesting funds for libraries, but they just don’t know yet, it’s so early in the process, about how that money is going to be divided up and who is going to get what,” he said.
Morton said one of the main services that federal funds go to at Leland Township Library is the Michigan Electronic Library, also known as MeL and MeLcat, which is a centralized catalog and resource sharing service that lends and shares materials among libraries statewide.
As the library has been under renovation for the last several months, they have been operating on a smaller scale in the Munnecke room. During this time, Leland’s collection has been reduced in size by about 90% as most materials are in storage, and they have been especially reliant on MeL services for visiting patrons. While the frequently used service is still up and running, Morton said its future is in doubt come 2026.
“If we get into the next fiscal year and that money is still cut, then we’re going to have to find other ways to fund it or do it regionally,” Morton said. “There’s options, but none of them are as good as the way it works now, and there’s a huge return on investment on that money because that way with the sharing of books, the libraries save a lot of money in not having had those books themselves.”
