Summary
The Mississippi Library Commission has permanently deleted its race relations and gender studies databases from the Magnolia system, citing compliance with state anti-DEI laws.
Executive Director Hulen Bivins confirmed the removal, warning of broader service cuts due to collapsing federal support.
DOGE effectively shut down the Institute of Museum and Library Services, halting grants nationwide.
Mississippi faces a funding crisis after failing to pass a state budget. Bivins warned libraries may close without support, saying, “It’s a tragic story.”
Nothing is lost when these databases are deleted from the consortium; this is effectively a cancellation of a subscription from Ebsco. What is being lost is free access to the materials collected in these databases through the Magnolia library system.
Library databases are typically subscription packages containing some combination of full-text content, indexes, or abstracts; the content is usually collected from academic publishers (some of the titles in these databases are published by groups like Johns Hopkins Univeristy Press or Taylor & Francis).
Looks like some of the titles in the Race Relations database titles are part of Academic Search Premier (which Ole Miss subscribes to, which doesn’t help anyone who isn’t a student there).
That said, those subscriptions are expensive and almost impossible to gain access to outside of a library system or research organization… which makes this an asshole move by the state legislature.
Edit: The databases in question are here: