(1) The legislature recognizes:
(a) The importance of free access to knowledge, information and diversity of ideas by all residents of this state;
(b) The critical role played by public, school, special and academic libraries in providing that access;
(c) The major educational, cultural and economic asset that is represented in the collective knowledge and information resources of the state’s libraries;
(d) The importance of public libraries to the democratic process; and (e) That the most effective use of library resources in this state can occur only through interlibrary cooperation among all types of libraries and the effective use of technology.
(2) The legislature declares that it is the policy of this state to provide laws for the development and improvement of public libraries, school libraries and interlibrary cooperation among all types of libraries.