MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Public Library Service Board voted to reverse its policy Thursday on how it will distribute federal grant money this year, a change that, while supported by about 100 library directors, could leave smaller libraries behind, warned APLS Director Nancy Pack.
“This puts us in a precarious situation,” Pack said, ahead of the board’s vote.
Approved in a 3-to-1 vote with one abstention, the policy change upholds the state’s typical method of distributing annual federal funds from the Library Services and Technology Act, known as LSTA grants, which is through a competitive grant process that individual libraries must apply for.
In September, the board voted to eliminate the competitive grant process in favor of a more universal process in which the APLS would instead use the LSTA money to equally distribute resources to all libraries across the state. The state was awarded roughly $1 million this year in LSTA grant money.
The board made the change due to its adoption in May of a new policy regarding the placement of controversial reading material in libraries at the behest of Gov. Kay Ivey, a policy that libraries were required to adhere to to receive state or federal funding, though struggled to do so by the deadline to apply for LSTA grants.
Pack said that as of November, just 63% of the 75 libraries that applied for LSTA grants had met the eligibility criteria that requires them to submit proof they’re compliant with the new policy on explicit or gendered reading material.
Pack urged the board not to reverse its policy back to distributing LSTA money through competitive grants and outlined why a more universal system would be more equitable.
“Our consultants who visit the 220 public libraries have heard how having a collection here at APLS and circulating it, having those (STEM) kits and mailing them out is really good for all libraries because we’re purchasing enough that every library in this state can ask for the kits,” she said.
“Another area that our consultants came back with is, if you’re in a very small town and you don’t have a bank, it’s very hard to notarize papers, so we want to fund having a notary in every public library available to notarize, free of charge, and help people with their papers.”
John Wahl, chair of the Alabama Republican Party and newly elected chair of the APLS Board, argued instead in favor of reverting back to the competitive grant process, citing a meeting he had attended that same morning with around 100 library directors across the state who had “unanimously” voiced their opposition to the more universal use of LSTA money.
“As far as the consultants visiting local libraries… one thing I know is I usually trust the people running operations more than consultants,” Wahl said.
During the meeting’s public comment portion, a number of speakers supported Wahl’s position, including Craig Scott, director of the Gadsden Public Library and president of the Alabama Library Association.
“I’m here today not just representing Gadsden, but over 100 other libraries that need your help,” Scott said. “These libraries depend on LSTA funding to provide services in their communities, and your decision not to approve LSTA grant applications at your (September) meeting has created much strain and hardship. Many of Alabama’s smaller libraries rely on LSTA funding to purchase books for their community. They receive no other support for their collections.”
Pack sympathized with the positions of the state’s library directors, but argued that returning to the competitive grant process was not only less equitable than distributing federal dollars on a statewide basis, but that with state lawmakers cutting the agency’s budget this year by 8.5%, smaller libraries could face severe financial hardships.
“I have a question John: what’s best for the state of Alabama? Having access of this information to the entire state, plus the school systems, plus the college systems, or is it having an individual library to have that?” Pack said.
“The bottom line is your job is to make sure that libraries across the state of Alabama flourish. With these grants that my staff has proposed, every library in the state will flourish. Should you decide to go with individual grants, you’re picking individual communities and saying this community is better than this community.”
Some Republican state lawmakers had threatened the APLS with budget cuts last year in an effort to coerce the agency to cut ties with the American Library Association, which critics have said promotes explicit and gendered reading material to children. While the APLS did ultimately cut ties with the national organization, it still saw its 2025 budget slashed by around $375,000.
“I’m not necessarily opposed to the idea of finding a way to help the smallest libraries,” Wahl said, “but can we find a way to do that without compromising the APLS program this year?”
“No,” Pack responded, “we can’t because the state didn’t give me any additional money to play with when they did that 9% cut.”
At the same meeting, the board also approved their summary budget request for the 2026 fiscal year, asking for $7.2 million, a 9% increase over the current year, which would bring the agency’s funding in line with where it was in fiscal year 2024. The majority of the requested increase was for the APLS’ Alabama Virtual Library at $3.97 million for a 10% increase, and the agency’s operating expenses and supplies at $4.1 million, a 9% increase.
Alabama Daily News asked Wahl after the meeting about what could be done to subsidize smaller libraries that ultimately don’t receive a share of LFTA funds, to which he said he’d like to see the grant process improved next year, or to explore ways to help smaller libraries without grant funding.
Until then, however, Wahl encouraged smaller, financially struggling libraries to reach out to the APLS for assistance.
“No matter how small the library is, we want to make sure they have an opportunity to apply for those grants, and that was in place for this cycle,” Wahl told ADN. “If they did not apply but they still need help, we want them to reach out to us, we want to be a resource for every single library out there.”