A wave of art organizations and libraries are speaking up to warn that federal and state cuts could impact the lives of Granite State citizens.

Those sounding the alarm include the New Hampshire Library Association and a wave of local libraries, as well as cultural institutions like Arts4NH, the Capitol Center for the Arts and Prescott Park Arts Festival.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration released an executive order cutting the Institute for Museum and Library Services (also known as IMLS). The agency provides funding and grants to libraries and museums across the country, including New Hampshire, to help fund special projects, research and educational opportunities.

Additional cuts are now looming at the state level. A House committee working on state budget proposals voted in favor of eliminating funding for the Division of Arts, which helps provide funding to arts organizations and advance arts and culture in the state. They are also considering a proposal to shut down the New Hampshire State Library.

Rep. Joseph Sweeney, a Salem Republican who proposed those cuts on Monday, cited the loss in federal funding as part of his rationale, noting that the state wouldn’t be in a position to fill in the gaps. He also said the state library building in downtown Concord could be better used as office space.

“This is a budget in which we really need to identify what we need to fund in this state, and make reductions in the — what I would call — the optional, or the wants, of the state,” Sweeney said at the House Finance Division I committee on Monday.

Sweeney told his colleagues that he did not confer with the state library on its services before bringing the proposed cuts to the committee and noted the state librarian role is currently vacant. The previous state librarian retired in 2024, and former Gov. Chris Sununu pulled a nominee who drew conservative pushback over her opposition to book restrictions.

New Hampshire is home to the first state library ever instituted in the country. In addition to supporting library lending programs, the state library manages a variety of other programs and research databases, including those archiving historical records, government documents and other materials. It received $1.5 million from the IMLS program last year, according to a federal dashboard.

The New Hampshire State Council of the Arts also funded over $1.5 million in grants to arts organizations across the state in 2024, according to Arts4NH, an organization advocating for the state’s creative economy.

Libraries and museums consider the loss of state, federal support

The potential cuts at the federal and state level are sending shockwaves through New Hampshire’s literary and cultural communities.

Arts4NH estimates that arts programming contributes billions of dollars to the New Hampshire economy and represents some 21,000 jobs.

“Now is the time to advocate for the arts and remind our community, state, and federal leaders that arts and culture are essential—not only for creativity and cultural enrichment but for their economic and health benefits to our state,” the organization wrote in a recent call to action on social media.

According to local library officials, the federal funding from IMLS supported a range of programs, including offering books with braille and talking book services to assist readers with visual impairments, as well as providing New Hampshire library patrons with access to e-books and audiobooks through the Libby App. Portsmouth Public Library reported 17,000 borrows through the app last year, while Manchester City Library said its patrons borrowed an average of 6,000 titles per month.

The funding also supported high-speed internet access, STEM and job training programs, veterans’ telehealth spaces, and more, according to New Hampshire librarians.

Laura Horwood-Benton, the assistant director at the Portsmouth Public Library, said she’s especially concerned about the impact on inter-library loans. She said IMLS funding helped to make it possible for local libraries to share materials in different branches all across the state. Through that program, she said, the Portsmouth Public Library gave out roughly 2,700 books to library patrons in other communities last year.

“It makes it a much more equitable service across the state,” she said. “And it means that libraries can curate collections that are specific to their communities but also have access to a much wider range of materials including sometimes academic materials from state universities, as well.”

Horwood-Benton said the Portsmouth Public Library also relied on funding from IMLS to support administrative staff, van drivers. Without the funding, she said, the library is considering how they can continue to provide those services.

“What needs to be decided is whether the state can fund that service at a state level, and that is not clear,” Horton said. (Her comments came before Monday’s budget hearing where lawmakers discussed cutting state library funding.)

Horwood-Benton said they’re looking at the city budget, which will be up for discussion later this spring, to see whether they can find a means of funding many of the programs IMLS helped keep afloat. Without federal and state support, she said libraries throughout the state will be tasked with finding additional funding or looking at cutting programs.

“We would have to lose something in order to provide individual library funding for some of these services,” Horwood-Benton said. “So even if we’re able to maintain an interlibrary loan, for example, that would be a loss from somewhere else.”

Nearby at the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, Executive Director Leanna Grimm said at the moment the museum has the funding it needs — but she predicts that, in the long term, the loss of IMLS funding will force museums and art organizations to look to private donors. She predicts that the market for donations will get increasingly tight over time.

“I think that’s one of the biggest challenges with the proposed funding cuts is that all the local nonprofits – we’re all doing amazing work and amazing projects,” Grimm said. “They’re going to have to turn to private donors and foundations to try to fund that work, which means that competition is going to be all the higher. It means that they’re gonna be some really good projects that end up without funding.”

Grimm said now is the time for people to get out and support the arts. She’s been encouraged to hear positive community feedback in response to a letter the museum issued about the federal cuts.

“I was really heartened by our members’ reaction and the support for not only Strawbery Bank museum but museums and libraries throughout the state,” Grimm said. “I see some positives and, and some hope there.”

An Acton man was rescued after he did not bring snowshoes while hiking between Mount Guyot and South Twin Mountain in Lincoln, New Hampshire, on Friday, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department said.

At around 8:45 a.m. on Friday, March 21, conservation officers were notified of a hiker in distress off the Twinway Trail between the two mountains, in a remote part of the Pemi Wilderness, Fish and Game said in a statement. The hiker, Gary Sullivan, 52, of Acton, did not have cell service and could not call or text 911 to report that he was lost and was in deep snow.

Sullivan planned a two-day trip and brought with him a tent, a sleeping bag, extra clothes, traction devices, food, water, his 10 essentials and a Hike Safe card, Fish and Game said. But he did not have snowshoes.

“In researching his hike, he had read reports that traction devices were necessary but snowshoes were not needed,” the department stated. “This was true for the majority of his hike until he reached the area of Mount Guyot where he encountered waist-deep snow. He took shelter for the night of March 20 just west of Mount Guyot and started towards Galehead on the morning of March 21.”

After he started his hike, Sullivan lost the trail and was walking through waist-deep snow, the statement continued.

Sullivan was able to set up a shelter but with his phone’s battery running low, he could not get himself back to the trail, the statement read. While he would have been able to access through Gale River Road in Bethlehem, it was a 6-and-a-half-mile hike.

Two conservation officers and two Pemigewasset Valley Search and Rescue volunteers went off from Gale River Road and were flown by the New Hampshire Army National Guard to the Cannon Mountain Ski area at around 1 p.m., Fish and Game said.

By 4 p.m. the National Guard returned to Concord, New Hampshire, as the weather had not improved above 3,000 feet, the statement read. First responders returned with the hiker at 5:20 p.m. He had his gear packed and he was given snowshoes, and at 5:45 p.m., they group started to hike back.

At 10:05 p.m., the team arrived at Gale River Road with Sullivan, Fish and Game said.

A Massachusetts man was rescued by New Hampshire Fish and Game Friday between Mount Guyot and South Twin Mountain after losing the trail he was on and getting stuck in waist-deep snow without snowshoes.

The man, 52, from Acton, set off for a two-day excursion on Thursday. After sheltering just west of Mount Guyot overnight Thursday, he inadvertently got off Twinway Trail while hiking toward Galehead Friday morning. He texted 911 saying that his phone was going to die and “that he had lost the trail and was in deep snow without snowshoes,” NH Fish and Game officials said. 

Conservation Officers and volunteers from the Pemi Valley Search and Rescue Team started a 6.5 mile hike in to the man from Gale River Road in Bethlehem. The NH Army National Guard tried accessing the hiker using a plane, though the weather prevented them from reaching him. 

The rescuers found him a short distance south of Twinway Trail at 5:20 p.m., and they all hiked back to Gale River Road, arriving at 10:05 pm. 

“[The hiker] was extremely grateful for the assistance provided and for the attempt by the NH Army National Guard,” NH Fish and Game said. 

They said that the man was prepared with a tent, sleeping bag, extra clothing, food water, traction devices, the ten essentials, and a Hike Safe card, an NH Fish and Game-issued card that protects holders from having to pay for rescue costs if they need to be rescued. 

“The only item he lacked that would have proven helpful were a pair of snowshoes,” the department said.