Public libraries in Ohio have taken on many identities over the last 25 years, from literature distributors and internet hubs, to social services researchers and providers of basic needs like free food. But funding has stagnated, failing to match growing demands.
The Toledo Lucas County Public Library works to cultivate reading skills and technology access. But along with those services, the system works with partners to distribute meals to children in the community. It also hosts a small business and non-profit team, a program that has provided training, education, research services, technology and physical space, equating to more than $3.1 million in value to entrepreneurs and businesses, according to Jason Kucsma, executive director and fiscal officer for the library system.
“Folks tend to think of their libraries as where they grew up and had their story times,” Kucsma told the Capital Journal. “But we’re part of the public infrastructure.”
Libraries are also jumping in as potential funding cuts and actual job cuts to agencies like the IRS and the Social Security Administration leave Ohioans with questions and a lack of answers.
“When it comes to federal agencies, that’s probably something we’re going to see more of,” said Michelle Francis, executive director of the Ohio Library Council.
Ohio libraries are in the thick of it with tax season going strong, as they partner with organizations like the AARP to help people finish their filings.
“We can’t keep up with the demand for tax services,” Kucsma said. “Once we open that up, those slots fill up pretty quickly.”
In one year, Ohio public libraries saw visits from enough people to fill Ohio Stadium 434 times, according to council data.
However, over the last 25 years, the funding from the state hasn’t always matched the influx of roles libraries have included in their portfolio.
State funding
The Public Library Fund, which is the state’s funding source for all public libraries dropped by $27 million last year, putting the funding at the same level it was 25 years ago.
“When you’re funding libraries at the same level you were 25 years ago, but yet the demand, the expectation is growing, something’s gotta give,” Francis said.
The local libraries have significant support from their communities in the form of property tax levies, but there are still 48 library systems of the 251 in the state that rely solely on state funding for their main revenue, according to Francis.
“We see our relationship with the state as one where when we receive funding from the Public Library Fund, it goes straight to those services on the local level,” she said.
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The SLO gets some funding from libraries with which the it collaborates, but the biggest chunk, $5.4 million, comes from the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services.
“We’ve been here for 200 years, we have to plan like we’re going to be here for 200 more years,” Knapp said.
Without help from both the federal and state sides, the library is going to have trouble, particularly with its current facility.
In asking for a one-time increase in the 2026 operating budget of $525,000, Mandy Knapp, who heads the state library, told the Ohio House Workforce and Higher Education Committee their current facility is “no longer suitable” with the work needed to remediate HVAC issues threatening the preservation of “one-of-a-kind and rare materials” that include medieval manuscripts and writings from state political leaders.
“Due to the condition of our facility, we are unable to correctly preserve and care for these materials,” Knapp told the committee in February.
Federal funding
Along with the battle for state funding, the state library is facing potential cuts on a federal level after an executive order from President Donald Trump listed the Institute of Museum and Library Services as part of a group of governmental entities to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,” and ordered to “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law,” according to the executive order, which was released March 14.
Among the other entities listed for elimination with the library-services agency were the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Minority Business Development Agency, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, and the United States Agency for Global Media and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
The museum and library services institute provides funding to libraries and museums nationwide, including the State Library of Ohio. The library was praised by Francis and Kucsma as an entity that provides statewide benefits from those federal funds, including resource-sharing, summer learning programs, reading programs for the blind and deaf, and the Ohio Digital Library, which helps local libraries big and small provide audiobooks and e-books.
“These resources are not large amounts of money, but they go to help support projects and programs that the people of Ohio benefit from every day,” Francis said.
As of Friday afternoon, the State Library of Ohio hadn’t heard whether or not its funding would be cut, specifically the Grants to States Program, which is where the state library receives most of its funding.
The $5.4 million from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services is a drop in the bucket among the trillions of dollars the U.S. Congress handles, as Knapp looks at it.
“It’s like finding $20 in your wallet that you didn’t know was there, that’s what it is to Congress,” she said.
But for the State Library and the local libraries who work with it, that money is the difference between needed partnerships – digital services, consortiums for smaller libraries, the conservation of historic materials including parts of the state’s founding history – and being reduced to one singular role as a research library without the ability to help fellow libraries.
“It would totally and utterly devastate the State Library of Ohio,” Knapp said.
As it happens, the Toledo Lucas County Public Library was one of the recipients of the National Medal for Museum and Library Services, given out by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to “institutions that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities.”
Part of that contribution includes opening its meeting rooms to local governments and elected officials. At Toledo’s libraries, 27% of their meeting space usage in the last year was government-related, according to Kucsma, something the library encourages as a way to “meaningfully engage with people.”
“As we see people’s trust in general institutions erode, especially in the last 10 years, that hasn’t happened with people’s trust in libraries,” Kucsma said. “I think it’s only grown.”
Gov. Mike DeWine’s executive budget proposal had an increase to the Public Library Fund from 1.7% to 1.75%. But Francis said “we still have a long way to go with the budget,” and they plan to push even harder to show the importance of public libraries.
“I’m optimistic that (legislators) see the value,” Francis said.
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