For the Federal Workers – Editorial – Library Journal

For the Federal Workers | Editorial

by Hallie Rich, Oct 02, 2025 | Filed in News

A tribute to the lasting impact of civil service

When I was in high school, the federal agency where my dad worked for almost 25 years—the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)—was closed. It was devastating to our family, and, for my dad, ended a career in public service marked by meaningful contributions to the American public.

The scale of the ICC’s closure—only a few hundred employees remained when it was abolished in 1995—pales in comparison to current efforts to downsize the federal workforce. Since January, the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have implemented widespread employee reductions. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit with a mission to improve government, estimates that more than 199,000 civil servants have left the workforce as a result of the administration’s firings, forced relocations, and deferred resignation program.

Although positioned as reducing “waste, fraud, and abuse,” the cuts have been more chainsaw than scalpel. For libraries, the damage to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Library of Congress, and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) started with the ouster of their female leaders—Dr. Cyndee Landrum, Dr. Carla Hayden, and Dr. Colleen Shogan, respectively—and will continue with budget cuts.

In looking at the numbers, it can be easy to lose sight of individual losses, but we shouldn’t. Earlier this year I was moved reading Michael Lewis’s latest book, Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, a collection of essays celebrating the individuals quietly doing deeply consequential work. Former NARA Chief Innovation Officer Pamela Wright is featured in one, which captures the impact of her work to digitize the National Archive’s 13 billion records: “Every document, map, photograph, recording and film in the National Archives that Wright and her colleagues have scanned and transferred to the internet—accessible from a laptop in Lubbock or a smartphone in Sitka—makes the agency more democratic and more fair, which means the country is, too.”

That same commitment to access is embedded in IMLS’s mission to advance, support, and empower the nation’s museums and libraries. Following an executive order in March calling for its elimination, IMLS staff have suffered the whiplash of being placed on administrative leave, laid off, and then called back to work.

Yet remaining IMLS staff managed to administer outstanding grants to states over the summer and post the data from its latest annual Public Libraries Survey. Our October issue feature story, “Concerned But Committed” (pp. 16–18), documents the cascading impact of reduced services, imperiled libraries, and subsequent local job losses that IMLS cuts represent.

With a government shutdown now in effect, workers across federal agencies, including the Library of Congress, Government Publishing Office, IMLS, and NARA, will be furloughed or, in some instances, required to report to work without pay.

When the president fired the librarian of Congress in May, the brevity of her termination letter spoke volumes about the way the administration views the knowledge, expertise, and dedication to service that Dr. Hayden—and so many federal workers—possess.

Asked by CBS News if she thought her firing was personal, Hayden said she did not. She’s probably right, but it sure does feel personal to me and many librarians.

Thinking back to when my dad lost his job, our family didn’t celebrate it as advancing government efficiency; we mourned what my dad, a person who worked hard for many years on behalf of the American people, lost.

To the civil servants whose livelihoods and work have been upended over the past nine months and who are now grappling with a government shutdown—we honor your contributions. Wright captures the meaning of federal employment when she describes the oath workers take: “That oath makes you realize that what you are doing is fundamentally important to the country, no matter what capacity you are in while working for the federal government—that your work and how you conduct yourself matters, and you need to be aware of the significance of it.”

Updated October 2, 2025

Hallie Rich, hrich@mediasourceinc.com, Hallie Rich is Editor-in-Chief of Library Journal.

Editor’s Note: I am proud to share this post, and of Library Journal’s stance on this vital issue now. We are in danger of losing Democracy, and it will end our libraries. They will burn books. Listen. Pay Attention. We are at the brink of authoritarianism.

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