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NEW!Interview: Mohammad Abbas talks about his role as head of the new Library Department of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, the nations parliament in Baghdad.
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Texas County Commissioners Withhold
Funds from Nonfiltering Libraries
The Collin County, Texas, commission voted 3–2 on August 9 to withhold $32,500 remaining in this year’s county funds from any community libraries in their jurisdiction that don’t block obscenity from their public Internet workstations, as well as $130,000 in FY 2000–2001. Eight cities are affected by their decision: Allen, Celina, Farmersville, Frisco, McKinney, Melissa, Plano, and Wylie.
“We’re not asking them to change their policy,” commission member Jerry Hoagland told the August 12 Dallas Morning News. “We’re simply saying if you’re going to keep that policy, we won’t participate.”
Ironically, it will be book budgets, service hours, and fee-free borrowing privileges for nonresidents that will be curtailed instead of Internet service, the directors told the newspaper.
The decision came on the heels of a Plano City Council committee recommendation to filter all but one machine at each of the system’s four branches. “Will that be good enough for the commissioners?” Plano Public Library Director Joyce Baumbach asked.
