Public Lending Right and the Working Party Report

Abstract

The Public Lending Right campaign began in 1951 and the details of the proposals have been changed over the years. A report by the Arts Council in 1967 put forward the first scheme which librarians could consider workable. Some of the arguments used to support the campaign are questionable: Scandinavian countries, for instance, provide no exact parallels. The 1972 Working Party Report makes no recommendation but many of the facts it assembles can be used to oppose PLR in its proposed form.