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Kansas Librarians Embroiled in CD Settlement FlapKansas Attorney General Phill Kline is defending his decision to refuse some 1,600 music CDs officials believed to contain inappropriate content. Kline nixed the items from a shipment of 51,000 CDs Kansas libraries were entitled to receive as compensation in a price-fixing suit.“It’s an exercise of discretion; that’s different from censorship,” Kline told the Associated Press August 6. He added that the purge of titles by 25 artists, which he had decided on this spring, was meant to stop libraries from receiving music that promotes gun violence and drug use, which Kline said he wants to discourage since he “sees the results of [such behavior] every day.” But officials of the Kansas Library Association have vociferously objected to media reports that they say characterized their association as in favor of censorship. The AP quoted KLA Executive Director Rosanne Siemens as saying Kline “did libraries a big favor” by rejecting titles by artists such as OutKast, Stone Temple Pilots, Lou Reed, and Devo, and went on to include remarks by several Kansas public librarians and an ACLU official who condemned Kline’s actions. Confirming the technical accuracy of her quote, Siemens told American Libraries that KLA officials had responded based on their knowledge of the court settlement terms, “signed by every AG in the nation, requesting that the titles [given to libraries] not promote violence against women or law enforcement.” In a statement posted August 9 on the Kanlib-L discussion list, KLA President Patti Butcher explained that the attorneys general could only choose from “the items sitting in the music industry warehouses that were old, unwanted, and [the defendants] wanted to unload” and that the AGs deselected a very small percentage of the proffered titles. While KLA “would have much preferred a cash settlement from the record companies, which would have allowed each library to select the materials most needed in their collections . . . that wasn’t the settlement that was arranged by the court,” she said. Butcher concluded: “It is our hope that in future cases the Attorney General’s office will work with the library association to ensure that together we can obtain the best materials for Kansas libraries.” Posted August 13, 2004. |
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