[OYAN] LSTA 2026 funding secured!

[MAURER Jennifer * SLO]

Please pardon the cross-posting. Hi, folks. Below is an update from Wendy Cornelisen, State Librarian, about the budget situation. As a reminder, the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant that she mentions is what funds OSLIS, the statewide databases (Gale), a chunk of OBOB, Answerland, competitive grants that we offer, most of the staff in the Library Support division, and more. In the President’s initial budget, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) was to be sunsetted, so there were no funds for its programs and grants. However, the Senate and House chose to fund the IMLS and LSTA at level or slighter higher amounts than last year, and that portion of the federal budget was signed last night. 🎉 If you have questions, please ask. – Best, Jen (Jen Maurer, School Library Consultant, State Library of Oregon, jennifer.maurer at slo.oregon.gov<mailto:jennifer.maurer at slo.oregon.gov>)

From: ola at memberclicks-mail.net <ola at memberclicks-mail.net> On Behalf Of Wendy Cornelisen
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2026 2:01 PM
To: MAURER Jennifer * SLO <jennifer.maurer at slo.oregon.gov>
Subject: [oasl-all] LSTA 2026 funding secured!

Last night, the House passed and the president signed the Labor, Health and Human Services Act funding, which includes our favorite federal agency, the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Federal fiscal year 2026 funding for IMLS includes:


  *   Office of Library Services (LSTA)
     *   Grants to States: $181,400,000  (+$1.4M over 2025)
     *   Native American Library Services: $5,763,000 (level funded)
     *   National Leadership Grants: $15,287,000 (level funded)
     *   Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian: $10,000,000 (level funded)
     *   Total LSTA: $212,450,000  (+$1.4M over 2025)
  *   Office of Museum Services (Museum Services Act): $42,850,000 (-$12.6M from 2025)
  *   African American History & Culture Act (Museum Grants): $6,000,000 (was previously under OMS, level funded)
  *   National Museum of the American Latino Act (Museum Grants): $6,000,000 (was previously under OMS, level funded)
  *   Research, Analysis, Data Collection: $5,500,000 (-$150,000 from 2025)
  *   Program Administration: $19,000,000 (-$3,650,000 from 2025)
  *   Total IMLS: $291,800,000 (-$3M from 2025)

In summary, there’s a small ($1.4M) increase for LSTA, all for Grants to States.  The Office of Museum Services and its programs, some of which are no longer under OMS but are under the greater IMLS umbrella, have been reduced by $600,000.  The Office of Research and Evaluation had a small reduction ($150,000) and IMLS Administrations the largest reduction ($3.65M).

LSTA funds are distributed by state population, and it will be a few more days before we have the updated (expected to be slightly higher) total for Oregon’s LSTA 2026 grant.  These are the funds that we spend in FY2027, starting in July 2026.

This is a milestone to celebrate! The next step is for the State Library to receive the Award Letter, and then the LSTA Grant Assurances forms will be reviewed and signed.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Wendy

Wendy Cornelisen (she, her, hers)
State Librarian
State Library of Oregon
wendy.cornelisen at slo.oregon.gov<mailto:wendy.cornelisen at slo.oregon.gov>
Office: 503-378-4367| Mobile 971-375-3992
www.oregon.gov/library<http://www.oregon.gov/library>
[Title: State Library of Oregon]


________________________________
Oregon Library Association • PO Box 3067, La Grande, Oregon 97850, United States
Remove My Email •  Privacy Policy<http://www.memberclicks.com/emailprivacy/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/oyan/attachments/20260204/239aa02c/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 20692 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/oyan/attachments/20260204/239aa02c/attachment.png>