Amid the persvasive fog of partisan rhetoric, it’s often hard to know what’s really happening in Washington, D.C.  

But one cheering piece of news appears to be emerging through the haze: The Institute of Museum and Library Services, targeted for eradication by budget-crunchers in the Trump administration eight months ago, appears to be on the glide path to survival. 

The small federal agency has funded a raft of projects in Hawaiʻi, including literacy-boosting online learning initiatives conducted all around the islands by the Hawaiʻi state library system, eye-opening exhibits at places like Bishop Museum and Waimea Valley and a host of programs that have boosted cultural stewardship of all kinds.

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Since its creation in 1996, the agency has enriched, educated and entertained Hawaiʻi residents for more than two decades.

Part of the funding for Bishop Museum’s recent popular Ka ‘Ula Wena: Oceanic Red exhibit, for example, came from this source, as did the fascinating new Living History exhibit at Waimea Valley, which allows visitors to see traditional grass hale structures furnished and equipped as they would have been in ancient villages. 

In fact, an analysis of the agency’s funding history on its website shows 87 Hawaiʻi-based initiatives have gotten funding in just the past six years.

Favorable Court Rulings

In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting the institute for termination, along with several other agencies that had also drawn the ire of conservative activists. 

This came even though the Institute of Museum and Library Services has long enjoyed bipartisan support. Libraries and museums tend to be popular across the political spectrum. 

The institute won a judicial reprieve last week when Rhode Island Judge John J. McConnell Jr., an appointee of President Barack Obama, granted a motion for summary judgment that said the Trump administration was taking action “in circumvention to the will” of Congress in trying to dismantle the agency.

In a press release, Hawaiʻi’s governor and attorney general took some credit for the victory, as did New York Attorney General Letitia James. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by 21 Democratic attorneys general. 

On Tuesday, the Trump administration appeared to have dropped its appeal of the decision, but could still change its position. For now, however, the matter seems laid to rest.  

That may be because even the splintered U.S. Congress has signaled its ongoing support for the institute. In September, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee endorsed a $292 million annual budget for the institute for fiscal year 2026 and the Republican-led Senate Appropriations Committee approved the same amount without amendment.

The agency’s support has always been bipartisan. It was created as a consolidation of several agencies during the Clinton administration at a time when the House and Senate were both controlled by Republicans. 

For now, the institute’s staff has returned to work and grant recipients are receiving the funds they were promised.

Widespread Community Support

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has had a deep reach not just across the islands but across the country. Funding recipients have included aquariums, arboretums, art galleries, botanical gardens, historic sites, planetariums, science and technology centers, and zoos. 

What made the institute a target? Trump’s order didn’t say and he hasn’t singled the department out for public attack. In fact, he signed the reauthorization act for it back in 2018. But some clues are evident in the conservative playbook drafted by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, which specifically criticized libraries for drag queen children’s story hours.  

Controversy over drag queen story hours even erupted in Hawaiʻi, where there is a strong Hawaiian gender-fluid tradition. Some local residents underscored their disapproval of the performances by turning out to protest, saying they believed that drag shows were fine for adults but crossed the line when offered up as entertainment for children.

The programs sponsored by the institute itself, however, have not been particularly controversial. Those in Hawaiʻi have enjoyed popular support. 

In 2021, Kawaiahaʻo Church, founded in 1820, was given $98,288 to digitize records that are a primary source for genealogical research, according to the institute. The Moanalua Gardens Foundation received $150,000 to develop a website and digital library to share ancestral stories stretching back to pre-Western contract.

In 2022, Bishop Museum got $150,000 to digitize the Judd Family Papers, an estimated 2,400-piece collection that includes journals and documents providing insight into Hawaiian history from 1823 to 1903. In the application for the grant, the museum said the papers were “one of the most historically significant yet unknown manuscript collections” in its possession. 

That same year, the Pacific Submarine Museum received $500,000 to help preserve the USS Bowfin, a World War II-era vessel that is a national historic landmark.

In 2023, the Hawaiʻi Department of Accounting and General Services received $216,982 that helped the state archives digitize more than 100,000 photo negatives from architectural historians David Franzen and Nancy Bannick. These photos captured the “Hawaiʻi that was,” and the project will allow the images to be broadly shared and preserved.

Last year, the Friends of the Judiciary History Center got $250,000 to redesign and update exhibits that shed light on Hawaiʻi’s justice system and how it has evolved.

Chaos For Grant Recipients

The shifting political winds during much of the past year have created a chaotic funding environment for grant recipients.

Hi’ipaka, the nonprofit that oversees the operation of Waimea Valley for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, recently received a two-year grant for the full interpretation of the valley’s restored hale complex, with its historically accurate implements and recorded narrations explaining their uses. 

The exhibits bring a “traditional Hawaiian living site to life for visitors,” said OHA spokesman Bill Brennan. 

But then the nonprofit was abruptly informed that the grant had been terminated by the institute’s acting director, Keith Sonderling, “which temporarily halted the project,” Brennan said.  

The grant was reinstated on May 21, and “the entire $150,000 was received,” he said.

Stacy Aldrich, the Hawaiʻi state librarian, put herself in the middle of the fray by presenting an affidavit in support of the lawsuit brought by the 21 attorneys general.  

The institute provided the state library system with $1.5 million in 2024, she said in the affadavit, and the money has supported many programs, including community access to the internet, literacy efforts, student homework support and civic engagement. The money is vitally needed, she told the court, to enable the library system to provide services to 51 branches scattered across six islands. 

If Trump’s executive order stood and the institute lost its ability to supply much-needed grants to libraries like those in Hawaiʻi, it would cause “significant harm to the people of Hawai’i, the Hawai’i State Public Library System and the State of Hawai’i,” Aldrich said.

In fact, she said, amid continuing uncertainty, the library system had been forced to halt subscriptions for many online resources. 

“Hawaii is located in one of the most remote places one can live on planet Earth,” she told the court. “Our libraries are the only spaces that are opened to everyone, and, in some communities, offer the only broadband connectivity. Access to professionally curated and learning opportunities are vital to the success of students, individuals, and our communities.”

Without the insitute’s support, she added, Hawaiʻi would lose access to online resources that extend connections across the islands.