CONTRACTING FOR LIBRARY SERVICES. Letter, February 16, 1968, to Mrs. Grace Handy, Argonia, Kansas.
If we understand the facts in your letter of January 20, your township has voted to establish and maintain a library and a library board has been appointed. You ask whether, instead of maintaining the township's own library, the library board may contract with some other library to furnish library services.
K.S.A. 12-1230 to which you refer deals with a municipality, such as a township, not maintaining a library. The governing body of such a municipality is authorized to contract with a library for the furnishing of services and to levy a tax to pay for such services. If it is the desire of the township to proceed under that section, the contract should be made by the township board and not by the library board.
As we view the statutes, if a municipality wishes to establish and maintain its own library it should have a library board for its supervision and management. On the other hand, it is intends to avail itself of the facilities of a library belonging to some other municipality, there is no need for a library board and the governing body of the municipality is authorized to contract directly for library services.
- Quoted from Kansas Public Library Laws, Attorney General’s Opinions and Rules and Regulations, State Library of Kansas, March 1979.
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