Targeting the Library of Congress

Do you know there is a Library of Congress? And do you know what the Library of Congress does? You should or better learn, quickly, because this Administration is targeting the Library to prevent access to facts and real information.

Set up by Congress in April 1800, the Library has a critical function in our democracy. First, and perhaps most importantly, the Library of Congress provides research and information to the U.S. Congress through the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

The CRS is the go-to place for information, checking facts, comparing past laws and bills with intended new legislation. The CRS operates in a totally non-partisan manner as a comprehensive and reliable legislative research and analysis center, providing timely, objective, authoritative, and confidential, information for the national legislature.

Secondly, the Library is the largest library in the world. Yes, largest, most comprehensive. Some of which will shortly be off-limits.

Third — and this is critical for all industry, media, publishing, inventions — the Library controls copyright.The U.S. Copyright Office is within the Library of Congress and administers the whole national copyright system. It is where you go to file a copyright protection for your output as a creator. And that’s for every major industrial corporation, all of publishing, the media, all the way down to the street artist.

Fourth, the Library of Congress gives tremendous access to the public, some of which includes research facilities, exhibitions, and digital collections. And every major media outlet, from FOX to CBS, will tell you they use this resource every day.

Oh, and a small matter, the Library is the national library center for the blind and physically handicapped. But this Administration is marginalizing them anyway.

Why worry? Well, this week Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, the first woman, the first African American, and the first career librarian to hold the position. Not a DEI by any means, she was appointed in 2016. But suddenly, in only an email, the White House said, curtly (and only), “Carla, On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.” They avoided the obvious “…and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Why did they do this? The ultra-right wing American Accountability Foundation (AAF),called for her ouster. “The President and his team have done an admirable and long-needed job cleaning out deep state liberals from the federal government. It is time they show Carla Hayden…the door and return an America First agenda to the nation’s intellectual property regulation,” said AAF’s president, Tom Jones (in the Daily Mail two weeks ago). Jones used to work for Senators Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz in their opposition propaganda activities. The AAF gets funding and guidance from the Heritage Foundation, creators of Project 2025.

Librarian Hayden is gone, and the Administration is probably already banning access to parts of the Library preventing legislators from proving facts on past Congressional activity and laws.

Some Senators are fighting back — fighting against this form of book-burning control of reality. Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico: “While President Trump wants to ban books and tell Americans what to read – or not to read at all – Dr. Hayden has devoted her career to making reading and the pursuit of knowledge available to everyone. Be like Dr. Hayden.”

The Trump Administration fired Shira Perlmutter, the top copyright official in the U.S. The move comes two days after the White House fired Carla Hayden, the head of the Library of Congress, which maintains the Copyright Office. Hayden appointed Perlmutter to the position in 2020. Perlmutter received an email last Saturday reading, “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately,” the AP reports.

The register of copyrights, however, is a legislative position. Congress could fight Perlmutter’s termination.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, New York, now lives in Gila, New Mexico.