Colorado students depend on reliable access to high-quality digital research tools to learn, think critically, and prepare for college, careers, and civic life. Yet proposed legislation like House Bill 25-1158 threatens to dismantle the very infrastructure that makes this access possible. Although HB25-1158 failed to advance in the 2025 session, similar versions have been introduced in prior years and may return in 2026. The EveryLibrary Institute NFP has prepared a policy brief to ensure legislators, education stakeholders, and industry partners fully understand what is at stake for students, schools, and communities across the state.
Download your copy of "Protecting Student Access to Research and Information in Colorado Schools: A Review of HB25-1158 Policy Impacts," November 2025 (opens PDF)
Framed as student-protection measures, legislation like HB25-1158 would impose rigid restrictions on school library databases and curated digital research collections by prohibiting advertisements, promotions, and embedded links or URLs. In practice, these requirements are incompatible with the way modern educational publishing, journalism, and scholarship actually operate. A bill like HB25-1158 would render widely used, standards-aligned resources such as major newspapers, magazines, and academic reference tools unlawful for school use, destabilize procurement systems, increase costs for taxpayers, and disproportionately harm rural and under-resourced districts that rely most heavily on shared digital infrastructure.
This policy brief presents a clear, evidence-based analysis of the educational, technical, fiscal, and equity impacts of legislation like HB25-1158, explaining why it cannot be meaningfully amended into a constitutional, workable, or educationally sound policy. We invite legislators, school leaders, librarians, publishers, and vendors to review the findings and join us in urging the Colorado General Assembly to reject the reintroduction of HB25-1158 or any substantially similar proposal.
Additional resources from the EveryLibrary Institute about access to school library database and online resources:
- "Access to Online Subscription Content in K12 Schools through the School Library", by Connie Williams, Mary Ann Harlan, and Jo Melinson, December 2024, on The Political Librarian
- "Weathering Attacks on Library Databases: A Review of Anti-Access Legislation Affecting School Library Database Contracts During the 2021-2022 Legislative Session," by Megan Blair, Peter Bromberg, and John Chrastka, October 2022
- Model "School Library Database Procurement Act" developed by the EveryLibrary Institute and Georgetown University's iPIP Clinic, January 2023