Due to federal budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Aiken County Public Library has found itself without the grant funding it needs for its annual fall book discussion series, Let’s Talk About It.
Because of these cuts, the library is currently accepting donations of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “All the King’s Men” by Robert Penn Warren. They are in need of at least 30 of each title.
The library’s manager, Jessica Christian, said that Let’s Talk About It is one of the library’s most popular programs, having been in place for at least 20 years. The series allows participants to read and discuss books, watch their movie adaptations and engage in conversations around the literature with scholars and college professors.
“It brings a group of people together so they can have community…it gives them something to do that provides critical thinking and continuing learning,” said Christian.
Funding cuts announced in early April
The Federation of State Humanities Councils’ website includes information about DOGE targeting the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
The website documents that on April 2, all humanities councils received emails and letters under the signature of NEH Acting Chair Michael McDonald notifying them that all awarded grants, including their five year general operating grants and other program specific awards, were canceled in their entirety effective April 1.
Further, the website states that on April 4, the Federation learned that 145 NEH staff members – accounting for 80% of the agency – have been placed on administrative leave by a team from DOGE.
Christian made an April 3 Facebook post to talk about this news, stating: “The loss of NEH funding will be devastating to the ability of South Carolina Humanities and all state humanities councils to serve communities, provide high quality programs, and generate public humanities initiatives that are enriching for the state.”
In this post, she also included a list of ways the community can take action against funding cuts, from sharing information on social media to contacting senators and representatives.
How cuts will continue to affect local library branches
Christian told the Augusta Press that eventually, the library will see more of the effects of the cuts.
“At the time that the cuts took place this year, a lot of the funding was already in place, like summer reading, for example,” she said.
She said there’s a sense of uncertainty with how programming will pan out in 2026. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen next year. If the funding isn’t restored in time for summer reading, we’ll probably have to cut back on a lot of summer reading events, or either cut things in other places in order to continue having all of those programs.”
“A lot of the cuts, we might not see the results of it for another six to 12 months,” she added. “A lot of libraries depend on this money in order to be more than just a warehouse that houses books. To provide the e-books and the audiobooks, that stuff’s expensive…I think that a lot of people don’t know what this money provides to them. They use these services but they don’t know how it’s being paid for. It’s important for us to have the funding in order to have a well-rounded library system that can provide programming and online digital resources for people as well as in-house books and magazines.”
Fortunately for the Aiken County Public Library, the Friends of the Aiken County Public Library will be able to provide some endowment funding that can help the institution continue offering programs, even if some things have to be scaled back.
However, Christian expressed concern for other libraries within Aiken’s regional library system that do not have friends of the library groups.
“A lot of our branches don’t have that option,” she said.
The Aiken Bamberg Barnwell Edgefield (ABBE) Regional Library System is made up of 13 libraries across those four counties.
