H.B. No. 2540
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to allowing the Texas State Library and Archives
    1-3  Commission to assist public libraries with public information
    1-4  technology grants.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  Section 441.135(b), Government Code, is amended
    1-7  to read as follows:
    1-8        (b)  The program of state grants shall include one or more of
    1-9  the following:
   1-10              (1)  system operation grants, to strengthen major
   1-11  resource system services to member public libraries and regional
   1-12  library system services to member libraries, including grants to
   1-13  reimburse other libraries for providing specialized services to
   1-14  major resource systems and regional library systems;
   1-15              (2)  incentive grants, to encourage public libraries to
   1-16  join together into larger units of service in order to meet
   1-17  criteria for major resource system membership or regional library
   1-18  system membership;
   1-19              (3)  establishment grants, to help establish public
   1-20  libraries that will qualify for major resource system membership or
   1-21  regional library system membership in communities without public
   1-22  library service; <and>
   1-23              (4)  equalization grants, to help public libraries in
   1-24  communities with relatively limited taxable resources to meet
    2-1  criteria for major resource system membership or regional library
    2-2  system membership; and
    2-3              (5)  public information technology grants, to help
    2-4  public libraries make state, local, and federal government
    2-5  information that is accessible through the Internet or electronic
    2-6  bulletin board systems available to the public through computer
    2-7  terminals at a library.
    2-8        SECTION 2.  Section 441.135(a), Government Code, is amended
    2-9  to read as follows:
   2-10        (a)  The commission shall establish a program of state grants
   2-11  within the limitations of funds appropriated by the legislature.
   2-12  The commission shall adopt by rule the guidelines for awarding
   2-13  grants, except that any municipal library which lends more than
   2-14  20,000 items per year to nonresidents cannot be denied any grant
   2-15  awarded after January 1, 1995, based solely upon the provision of
   2-16  services to nonresidents.
   2-17        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-18  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-19  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-20  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-21  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-22  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-23  passage, and it is so enacted.