AUGUSTA – Nearly 25,000 music compact discs, from classical to rap, are expected to be shipped to Maine schools and libraries this spring as the result of a national class action law suit against some of the nation’s largest music companies.

“This is really good news,” said Anne Davis, president of the Maine Library Association. “We have all faced budget problems and these will help.”

The nation’s top record and CD makers like Sony and Time Warner as well as retailers like Musicland and Tower Records admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement of the suit by 40 states charging that the companies had engaged in price fixing. The total settlement by all the parties to end the law suit was valued at $143 million.

Checks of $13.86 each went to about 3.5 million consumers that had joined in the lawsuit. Those checks, totaling $67 million, were mailed last month. To compensate those consumers that paid more for their music than they should have but did not join in the class action suit, the judge ruled each of the states would share in 5.6 million discs provided by the companies.

Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe made the decision that all the discs coming to Maine would be distributed to public schools and libraries. His rationale was explained in court documents.

“Given the dire budget issues faced by most educational institutions and libraries in our state, as well as the broad population served by those entities, it was felt that such a distribution would be most likely to serve the population in the most cost effective way,” the court filing stated.

Davis said all libraries have been hit with budget problems over the last few years, and the CDs will help in several ways. For example, she estimates that only about half of the 274 public libraries in the state have any CD collection.

“For some of our smaller libraries, it may mean they can start a CD collection for the first time,” she said, “many simply have not been able to afford one.”

Sylvia Norton, a Media Specialist in the Department of Education, worked with schools and libraries on how to distribute the CDs in Maine. Rowe stipulated 55 percent would go to public libraries, 35 percent to public schools and 10 percent to the state’s public higher educational institutions.

“We sent out an e-mail to the schools to see how many were interested,” she said. “We got 138 schools wanting to participate in the distribution.”

That means each school will get about 100 CDs ranging from classical, country and rock to jazz and show tunes. Public libraries will get about 160 CDs as will the 38 school libraries at the University of Maine System, the Community Colleges and Maine Maritime Academy.

“They will be randomly chosen, but will be from all genres,” Norton said.

Court documents indicate there are 1,960 titles in the settlement agreement and they span the musical universe from Madonna to Mozart.

“They are being shipped directly to the schools and libraries, so we don’t know exactly what CDs each will get,” Norton said.