The Mississippi Legislature recently passed two bills, SB 2346 and HB 1315, that include detrimental, unworkable requirements for public and school libraries. Senate Bill 2346 and House Bill 1315 would eliminate students’ access to library resources.
There’s still time for the legislature to fix these bills by removing these damaging requirements. We need your help today to send a clear message to both the state House and Senate to remove the damaging library provisions from these bills.
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The bills are moving quickly to be "reconciled" and sent to the Governor for signature. Please contact your state senator and representative to let them know you oppose the library provisions in SB 2346 and HB 1315. If these requirements aren’t removed now, the library-related provisions of these bills will:
- Jeopardize students’ futures and their access to critical educational resources;
- Conflate age restrictions about pornography with K-12 student access to library resources;
- Harm our children and businesses by making the state’s students less college-ready and work-ready;
- Undercut our state’s flagship higher education system, including consequences for the accreditation of our colleges and universities;
- Negatively impact Mississippi’s state economy and national competitiveness in the long term.
These harmful requirements for library research databases and digital resources were added to the bills by amendment at the last minute. They have rendered the bills unworkable. Please ask your legislators to protect our students’ futures by fixing these bills in Conference Committee now.