SRC-CTC H.B. 3591 77(R)   BILL ANALYSIS


Senate Research Center   H.B. 3591
77R9929 MCK-FBy: Hunter (Bivins)
Business & Commerce
5/9/2001
Engrossed


DIGEST AND PURPOSE 

An academic statewide resource sharing project entitled TexShare was first
funded in Fiscal Year 1994 under the Texas Higher Education Coordinating
Board.  The 53 publicly supported four-year academic and medical libraries
were original TexShare members.  In the 75th Legislature, legislation was
passed that expanded TexShare membership to independent academic
institutions and community colleges, and established TexShare as a program
of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.  During the 76th
Legislature, legislation was passed which brought public libraries into
TexShare, and in September 1999, the State Library assumed full
administrative responsibility for TexShare.  Currently, TexShare is
managing the transition from a resource sharing program focused on academic
institutions to one that fosters resource sharing among all academic and
public libraries.  H.B. 3591 expands membership in TexShare to include
nonprofit libraries that provide extensive library services and collections
in the fields of clinical medicine and the history of medicine.  

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

This bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a
state officer, institution, or agency. 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

SECTION 1.  Amends Section 441.221, Government Code, to define "nonprofit
corporation." 

SECTION 2.  Amends Section 441.222, Government Code, to require the Texas
State Library and Archives Commission (commission) to establish and
maintain the TexShare consortium as a resourcesharing consortium operated
as a program within the commission for, among others,  libraries of
nonprofit corporations. 

SECTION 3.  Amends Section 441.223, Government Code, to provide that the
legislature finds that it is necessary to assist libraries for nonprofit
corporations to promote the public good by achieving certain public
purposes.  Includes the expansion of the availability of information about
clinical medical research and the history of medicine among the stated
methods for achieving public purposes. 

SECTION 4.  Amends Section 441.224, Government Code, to make a conforming
change. 

SECTION 5.  Amends Section 441.226(f), Government Code,  to authorize the
advisory board of the commission to recommend to the commission that the
consortium enter cooperative projects with entities other than nonprofit
corporations. 

SECTION 6.  Amends Section 57.042(6), Utilities Code, to redefine "library."

SECTION 7.  Requires the commission to add libraries of nonprofit
corporations to the TexShare consortium as required by that Act only to the
extent that the commission may efficiently do so without reducing service
to libraries at institutions of higher education and public libraries. 

 SECTION 8.  Effective date: September 1, 2001.