Authors’ cash for library loans slashed

The Society of Authors is campaigning against the proposed reduction in Public Lending Right (PLR), the system under which authors are remunerated for the loans of their books from libraries.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced recently that funding is planned to go down from £7.682m this year (2007/08) to £7.432m next year, rising slightly to £7.582m in 2009/10. The Government’s support for PLR will only return to its present level in three years’ time (2010/11), with no provision for inflation.

Mark Le Fanu, the general secretary of the Society of Authors says: ’The PLR plans are especially depressing as DCMS managed to secure welcome increases in its funding for each of the next three years and has allocated rising sums, for example, to the country’s main galleries and museums. Income from PLR is vital to authors and the scheme is widely regarded as being efficiently run. It is astonishing that DCMS should snub Britain’s authors so emphatically.’

Authors have been particularly taken aback by this cut as it seems to contradict a promise they were given by government minister Margaret Hodge last year. In the autumn, the Society’s Chair, Tracy Chevalier, wrote to the Secretary of the State, James Purnell, urging him to ensure that PLR was given priority in the Spending Review. She received a reply after Christmas from the Minister, Margaret Hodge, saying: ’I am pleased to tell you that we have secured what I believe is a positive outcome for PLR in a tough spending round’.

Tracy Chevalier has written again to Margaret Hodge, pressing her to reconsider the PLR allocations. A letter signed by many well-known authors was published in The Guardian on 2nd February.

A SOA member, John Malam, has initiated an e-petition on the 10 Downing Street website which all are encouraged to sign.