Alert: Another Bad Library Bill in Utah
Note, this post was written by Rebekah Cummings and originally appeared on her Substack on March 2, 2025. It is reprinted here with permission. See also: FAQ on HB473
Last Friday, Representative Nicholeen Peck brought HB473 before the House Education Committee. Much like other recent Utah bills (namely HB374 in 2022 and HB29 in 2024) meant to root out “porn in libraries,” the purported goal of HB473 is to protect children from inappropriate materials in research databases like EBSCO, Gale, and Proquest and provide a reporting structure for parents.
On the face of this bill, it looks fine. Like all well-intentioned people, I agree that databases for K-12 schools should be age appropriate. I agree that if parents find something that seems inappropriate to them, there should be an easy way to report, investigate, and, if necessary, remove the content. So what’s the problem with this bill, and why did I choose to speak against it in Friday’s committee meeting?
Sign the petition and contact your State Senator asking them to oppose HB473
Here are the main reasons I oppose this bill:
This bill is the epitome of a solution looking for a problem. Our databases in Utah are already closely regulated and filtered against harmful content. In 2018, Rep. Peck (yes, she has been banging this drum for at least seven years) brought these same allegations forward to the Utah Education and Telehealth Network who purchases and monitors K-12 databases. They shut EBSCO (the database in question) down for 30 days, assembled a team, did a thorough investigation, and found NOTHING. They could not replicate any of Nicholeen Peck’s search results. In fact, after the Board voted unanimously to restore access to EBSCO, Ray Timothy, then UETN Chair, was quoted in Deseret News, “I feel comfortable that my grandchildren and other children are not being exposed to content that is inappropriate.” Since 2018, UETN has issued 28 separate reports on student usage of the databases, and with over a million searches per month, UETN has found no inappropriate usage of the databases.
We’ve already passed this law. No shocker here, Utah has long kept a close eye on children’s safety in schools. In 2021, the legislature passed HB38: School Technology Amendments that requires digital resources purchased or licensed by UETN to have strict safety policies and protection measures in place that would ensure no student has access to obscene or pornographic content. Sometimes, our filters are even too tight and students are blocked from content they need to see for upper-grade research. I have even heard database vendors call this “the Utah filter” as it’s more stringent than others across the country.
Whether intentionally, or due to ignorance, Rep. Peck has repeatedly presented false information as fact. For example, in 2018 when we were debating EBSCO safety in front of the UETN Board, she held up a stack of papers, claiming that she found pornography in EBSCO just the night before. The Chair gently reminded the Board and the audience, that, at that point, Utah’s K-12 instance of EBSCO, had been shut down for a month, and she must have found that information elsewhere. She repeatedly claims that Gale and EBSCO have merged and that they are technically the same company, when the are very much separate competitors. She frequently conflates public library, K-12, and higher ed instances of EBSCO, which all have different filters and levels of access. Often, Rep. Peck will say she found something in a database when really she found something 4 clicks and a Google search away. No one is debating that pornography and obscenity exist on the open web. That’s why we have databases in the first place, so kids have a safe place online to conduct research.
Aside from the unwarranted cost and administrative burden, I simply want to appeal to commonsense. Do any of us honestly think that our students are using academic research databases to find pornographic content? Do we sincerely believe they are spending hours experimenting with boolean operators and trying to beat filters in the hopes of finding that just right combination that might yield something scandalous? Or do we think they are looking on their phones? Conveniently, we don’t have to guess. We can see how our students search these databases, and seven years of reports show unequivocally, they are using them responsibly and for their intended purpose.
Unfortunately, at the committee hearing, comments were restricted to 60 seconds, but this is the public testimony I was able to make: (see video)
Long story short, this bill is one more attempt to erode trust in our public libraries, and Utah Library Association and Let Utah Read oppose it. We’ve already been able to work with legislators to improve HB473 from its original version, which had a $558,000 fiscal note attached and a $10,000 per day per item penalty for vendors. If that version passed, not only would it have been a tremendous waste of money for Utah taxpayers, but I doubt any reputable vendor would be willing to work with Utah and take on that liability.
WHAT ACTIONS CAN YOU TAKE?
You may be asking, can I help? YES. This week, the bill will move to the House Floor, and, if it passes, it moves on to the Senate Education Committee and then Senate Floor. There is still time to reach out to your Representative and Senator to tell them to vote no on HB473. If you don’t know who your representatives are, find out here!
Also, time might be on our side. There are only five days left in legislative session. Let your reps know that while child safety is paramount, there is no reason to rush this bill through in the last few days of session. That we should take the time to bring relevant stakeholders together in Interim Session to look at the extensive audits that UETN has already conducted before passing unnecessary legislation. Let’s go, Utah!