Accord­ing to the Kansas Attor­ney Gen­er­al libraries aren’t able to decide what music they want.

Uber-con­ser­v­a­tive Phil Kline decid­ed that Devo, Lou Reed, and Out­kast were among the ups whose albums “pro­mote vio­lence or ille­gal activity.” 

But did­n’t the librar­i­ans object, and ask to be able to choose their albums accord­ing to their own com­mu­ni­ty standards? 

The Kansas Library Asso­ci­a­tion, which advo­cates for pub­lic libraries, said it had no objec­tion to the attor­ney gen­er­al’s actions.

“This was very sim­i­lar to what libraries do all the time,” said Rosanne Siemens, the group’s exec­u­tive direc­tor. “It was­n’t so much an issue of tak­ing things out but deter­min­ing what would be best. They did libraries a big favor by select­ing these CDs because there’s no way libraries could have said what they wanted.”