<p>West Dunbartonshire council has clarified its position on its libraries&#39; stocking of books by Israeli authors after concerns were raised by staff on the public library discussion forum LIS-PUBS-LIBS.</p><p>The council has a boycott in place on the purchase of goods produced by Israel and Richard Aird, senior officer for ICT and Learning, told the library forum that the ban &quot;appears to extend to books written by Israeli authors.&quot; He wrote: &quot;Whilst we support the principle behind the corporate decision, we are naturally concerned about the message this sends out about how our libraries are stocked and the implications this has.&quot;</p><p>But a council spokesperson said: &quot;There is definitely no boycott on Israeli authors, the boycott is on Israeli goods. If a book was produced in Israel and exported from Israel it would fall under the boycott, but we would look at each book on a case by case basis.&quot;</p><p><em>The Bookseller </em>understands that concerned staff are continuing to press for commitment from the council&#39;s executive director of education to implement CILIP&#39;s policy on stock procurement and censorship, which requires access to all books unless a legal issue is involved.</p><p>Twenty-eight library authorities around the country are set to run a Banned Books promotion from 25th September to raise awareness of censorship. </p>