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Weekly News Digest
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August 21, 2025 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
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Roundup of More Federal Fallout: NEH, Smithsonian, and Local News
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) rolled out “an agency-wide reorganization to consolidate its grantmaking programs and divisions,” the press release states. “Following a reduction in force (RIF) of two thirds of the agency’s workforce in June, NEH will merge the functions and staff of seven grantmaking offices and divisions into four new divisions to support projects that advance humanities research, education, public programs, infrastructure, and cultural preservation.” They are the Division of Federal/State Partnership, Division of Collections & Infrastructure, Division of Lifelong Learning, and Division of Research.EveryLibrary issued a statement, The Chilling Effect of White House Overreach Into the Smithsonian Institution, saying, “According to public reports, the Trump administration is requiring eight Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the National Portrait Gallery, to submit their exhibition content, draft plans for future shows, and internal guidelines for review. The administration expects the Smithsonian’s vast collections to be aligned with President Trump’s executive order on ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History’ within 120 days.” EveryLibrary continues: This attempted oversight of the Smithsonian, an institution the administration cannot legally control, comes at a time when numerous other federal cultural institutions, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Library of Congress, and the National Archives, are without permanent, Senate-confirmed directors. This leadership gap leaves these organizations especially vulnerable to political interference, which can undermine the safeguards that protect those agencies from politicization. Federal actions like these have ripple effects at the state and local levels. If the Smithsonian, a prestigious institution known for its historical independence, can be compelled to align its content with political agendas, smaller organizations such as local history museums and public libraries will likely face increased pressure to modify their collections, exhibitions, and programs to fit these prevailing narratives. This encroachment threatens the right of communities to explore their history, culture, and identity honestly and on their own terms. EveryLibrary issued another statement on a related issue titled They’re Trying to Erase Our History from the Gift Shop, which reads in part, “The fight over books has left the library: National Park Service gift shops. And make no mistake—this isn’t about souvenirs. It’s about censorship. … The goal is simple: silence voices, sanitize the past, and control the narrative. If they can erase uncomfortable truths from the park gift shop, they can erase them from the classroom, the library, and eventually, our collective memory.” PEN America published Alarm Over Trump Administration’s Attempt to Rewrite History and Strip Truth From Exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution. It quotes Hadar Harris, managing director of the Washington, D.C., office: “Telling the story of the United States must extend to the full and complex history of its past and present, including an honest assessment of wrongs and injustices, and a recognition of the never-ending project of creating a more perfect union. The administration’s efforts to rewrite history are a betrayal of our democratic traditions and a deeply concerning effort to strip truth from the institutions that tell our national story. …” The Knight Foundation put out a press release stating, “The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Pivotal, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation … will commit nearly $37 million to provide immediate relief to public media stations at risk of closure following federal funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).” These cuts “will have dire impacts on the nation’s more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Some 115 stations—serving 43 million people—are losing more than 30 percent of their budgets, according to the most recent data available.” The press release continues, “This initiative creates a vital emergency revenue stream, providing the public media network with the stability and time needed to diversify funding sources and develop sustainable business models that will help secure its long-term future.”
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Brandi Scardilli
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