Doing research has been a challenge in recent years. The pandemic had effects similar to all public places, with shutdowns and limited hours taking a toll. Through it all, I found the Maine State Library in Augusta a standout for access, finding workarounds and maintaining a courteous staff never too busy to answer questions.

Due to its having to move extensive collections, the library is again largely closed to the public. Like the other state cultural agencies that shared a building — museum and archives — the library is moving back to its permanent home near the State House, where renovations supposed to last two years have taken five. Along with the archives, the library found a temporary site on State Street providing a semblance of the atmosphere that once prevailed.

Regulars came each morning to read the papers, use the public computers and chat with friends. Many probably didn’t have or couldn’t afford these things — that’s the genius of the lending library from Benjamin Franklin on down. The “diffusion of knowledge,” as Thomas Jefferson put it, was among the primary goals of the new republic he helped found.

The library closed temporarily this spring when President Donald Trump inflicted one of many punishments nationally. Trump made federal funding inaccessible to the State Library between March and May, and the library had to lay off eight employees as a result, doubtless including those answering questions and greeting patrons.

This is part of a broad-scale assault on knowledge itself.

Why else would Trump be suing news organizations for routine reporting and editing when they produce stories and broadcasts he doesn’t like — including, in eye-opening fashion, the Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, one of his biggest backers over the years.

Why would he insist on defunding public radio and television, accusing it of bias when little of what it provides has anything to do with politics? And why terminate grants for the arts and humanities?

Why is he forcing colleges and universities, public and private, to fire their presidents and pay huge fines, when it’s not even clear they’ve violated the federal laws in question, since no charges have been made public?

And why is the one federal department he’s trying to scuttle, Education, laying off 2,000 employees and cutting its workforce in half?

It’s really no secret. From his 2016 campaign to the present, Trump has constantly presented lies as truth and facts as debatable. To maintain credibility, it helps if the electorate becomes more ignorant, and Trump has set out to achieve that goal in, shall we say, textbook fashion.

Like those throughout history seeking to create one-man rule, Trump’s standards are whatever he likes or dislikes on a given day. Grants are withheld and occasionally restored, contracts torn up and federal employee protections disregarded.

Federal judges and courts of appeal have for the most part assessed these moves as illegal or unconstitutional, as they manifestly are, but the Supreme Court — in a blizzard of unsigned “emergency” orders — greenlighted most of them. The last check on Trump’s actions is currently inoperative.

Soon, Mainers will likely experience day-to-day losses when funding for public broadcasting is eliminated. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will end operations Jan. 1. The decline of newspapers and private broadcasters has already created large gaps in Mainers’ understanding of their state — its past, present and future — and the loss of noncommercial channels deepens that deficit.

Contrast the words of President Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Higher Education Act creating federal support for colleges and universities in 1965 and, later that year, legislation for the National Endowments for the Humanities and the Arts.

He said, “Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves, and to others, the inner vision which guides us as a nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish … The arts and the humanities belong to the people, for it is after all the people who create them.”

Public broadcasting has powerful friends, and we may be able to restore some or even most of the lost services. I’m less confident about the state library. Its patrons seem less powerful, less connected and thus have more to lose.

When institutions fail, however, we still have ourselves. Minds can be free if we make them free; no tyrant has ever been able to suppress that.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this column mischaracterized the Maine State Library’s access to federal funding in 2025.