Chilkat Valley museums and libraries are feeling the squeeze after a mid-March executive order from President Donald Trump dismantled several agencies including the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The institute is the primary source of federal funding for public libraries.
According to IMLS grant data, since 1998 Chilkat Valley community institutions, including the Sheldon Museum & Cultural Center, the Chilkoot Indian Association, Chilkat Indian Village, the Haines Borough Public Library, and the Hammer Museum, have gotten 77 grant awards totaling more than $3.3 million.
Those funds have paid for everything from Native American library services, to library enhancements, to museum assessments, to national leadership grants, to conservation programs and general operating support.
While a federal judge on Tuesday blocked the attempt to unravel the institute, saying it violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the restraining order is temporary. It does stop further layoffs at the federal institute and grant terminations, but the order does not undo staffing cuts or grant terminations that have already happened.
Here’s more about where local institutions stand.
Klukwan/Tlákw.aan
The community and school library is so strapped for cash after its federal funding was revoked that staff are only able to open it a few hours a week.
Librarian Jamie Katzeek said the library was notified in early April that it had lost its IMLS grant. Compounding the problem, Katzeek said the library was using those funds to match its state Public Library Assistance grant.
“If they don’t waive that requirement, we won’t be able to apply for that grant,” Katzeek said.
It’s not clear if the state will relax its requirements for its Public Library Assistance grant – particularly for rural libraries like Klukwan’s and others in small villages which rely on both of those grants for the majority of their funding.
State Libraries, Archives & Museums Director Amy Phillips-Chan shared an email she sent to libraries in mid-April acknowledging that some may not be able to meet the requirements of the state’s assistance grant.
In it, she wrote that her division was working to waive that requirement, if necessary, and encouraged people to apply for the grant, which had a deadline of April 30.
Phillips-Chan did not respond to follow-up questions about how many libraries in the state would likely be impacted by a potential compounded loss of federal and state funds.
When asked about the scale of the problem, staff at the State Libraries, Archives & Museum forwarded questions to Department of Education and Early Development spokesperson Bryan Zadalis, who has not responded to messages seeking more information or an interview with state staff who manage the programs.
Katzeek said her library uses state funds for its book budget, the library’s online catalog, some supplies and some staff hours.
She and the tribal administrator are working through the appeal process for both of the grants it receives – something she is volunteering her time for as she has a second job. But, for now, she and the other librarian have decided that the few hours a week they can be open should be in the evenings and on weekends so the community can still utilize the library.
Right now it’s open on Wednesday and Thursday evenings according to the Chilkat Indian Village community calendar. But that means the library, which is housed in the community’s school, is not available to kids during school hours. That’s down from the usual two or three class visits a day and students using it as a space to study and read.
“Now they don’t have anywhere to go,” Katzeek said.
Saantaas’ Lani Hotch was surprised to hear that the library would be reduced to a handful of operating hours.
“So, the library is pretty much going to be nonexistent,” she said.
Hotch has worked with the library in several different capacities, as a visiting artist and through the village museum – Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center.
“We would collaborate and get different artists in to teach traditional Native art,” Hotch said. “The heritage center might pay the teacher’s salary and the library would cover travel and I would put [them] up in my house. So, we would pool our resources.”
Before the library got IMLS funding, Hotch said she remembers it as a room full of books.
“They weren’t in any kind of order and there was nobody tending to it. It was just a room in the school with books,” she said. “There wasn’t any programming and it was hard to find anything you wanted. You just had to browse and browse to find anything.”
Klukwan library consultant and former Haines Borough public library director Ann Myren said the Klukwan community library revitalization project began in 2005 and was funded through an IMLS Native American/Native Hawaiian library grant.
Since then, the Chilkat Indian Village has gotten 10 more federal grants that it used to grow the collection, launch literacy programs, develop a Klukwan history book series and create a film series on subsistence food sources.
Hotch said people in Klukwan/Tlákw.aan have worked hard to develop cultural institutions within their community.
“It’s like we’re getting the rug pulled out from under us by these big cuts,” she said. “I think libraries are anchoring institutions for a community.”
Hotch said the Heritage Center would generally use IMLS funds for specific projects, like bringing in exhibits or creating new ones. Right now, the community has had some items repatriated, and Hotch said they could use funding to get them settled and to potentially develop a display.
Shawna Hotch, who is a tribal council member for the Chilkat Indian Village, said her entire family is impacted by the loss of the library space,particularly over the summer.
“It’s really hard to explain to a three-year-old why we couldn’t go to story time or Lingít language hour.”
Shawna Hotch said she attended the Klukwan/Tlákw.aan school and remembers a project that involved her grandfather and tribal elders’ creating voice memos and recordings.
“You could go put headphones on and hear oral histories and stories,” she said. “There are also stories translated in Lingít, you could just listen to the story and flip through the book. I can’t imagine what it would be like not to have access to that.”
The restrictions also mean that two staff members are, essentially, out of work.
Haines library
That was a sentiment reinforced by current Haines Borough Public Library Director Reba Heaton and her predecessor Myren.
“It impacts everyone,” Heaton said. “People who get paid by the library, you know, might go into certain businesses and now they can’t afford to do that. Or, when we buy books, we try to buy from The Bookstore. Now it’s not going to come to them. It does trickle down.”
Heaton said the loss of IMLS funding won’t result in cuts to the Haines library hours. But it will make some things harder.
For example, the Haines library usually applies for a noncompetitive basic grant through IMLS each year, similar to Klukwan/Tlákw.aan.
“It’s $10,000 and you can spend it on any running cost,” Heaton said. “We’d usually use it for supplies and lending materials. It goes a long way to supplement when the borough is asking people to cut.”
Over the years, the Haines Borough Public Library has gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars from IMLS, which Heaton attributes in part to the large grants the library writes.
Collaborations with other community organizations, and those big grants have led to projects like the Chilkat Valley Fingerprints Project – made possible through a nearly quarter-century old partnership with Chilkoot Indian Association.
IMLS funds also paid for the Dragonfly Project – another partnership with the Chilkoot Indian Association that was funded by enhancement grants for Native Americans through IMLS. That program saw young people in the community developing curriculum and learning how to teach technology to people of all ages.
Haines Sheldon Museum
Haines Sheldon Museum executive director Brandon Wilks said the museum is not immediately impacted by the loss of IMLS funding, because it currently does not have a federal grant.
“I kind of saw some of this coming and hadn’t applied for anything,” Wilks said.
But the loss of a grant funding source could complicate the museum’s main gallery exhibit overhaul plans. The museum’s current exhibit has been up for eight years.
Last fall, staff began a project assuming that it would be able to find funding to change out its new exhibit by the spring of 2026. In an ideal world, Wilks said that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and the IMLS funding was a reliable source of funding.
“We’re not going to stop the new main gallery exhibit, we’re just looking for sources of funding elsewhere,” he said. “It’s not going to change the trajectory. It just changes the way we’re able to do it.”
Wilks said he is focused on helping staff at the institution weather the storm and hopes the borough will continue funding the museum.
“I think most people can see there’s a lot of waste at high levels of government,” he said. “I obviously work in museums and a cultural center, I love history and I do hate to see worthwhile funding frozen. But, you know, it’s what people voted for.”