PLR and library cuts
Sir: T. W. Mollard (Letters, May 24) need not suspect illogicality in authors who deplore Buckinghamshire's library cuts and also demand public lending right. The PLR campaign is pro, not anti, the library service. It just wants the government (not the libraries) to pay the authors tor their part in the service.
Buckinghamshire might indeed, as T. W. Mollard implies, have provided a test: A population of virtually half a million is suddenly unable to borrow new fiction and new children's books: will it buy them instead? However, the test can prove nothing if the bookshops aren't there or if the books aren't in them or aren't conspicuous. The publishing industry has grown used to Britain's uniquely large library service and apparently can't shift its habits of mind. in the hope of promoting sales and shaming the local authority into restoring the library cuts, as well as setting up a useful test, the Writers' Guild (the trade union of writers) recently approached the Publishers' and the Booksellers' Associations urging them to try to sell new books in Buckinghamshire under the slogan -Books you can't get from your local library'. The publishers say they will discuss the idea but doubt if the public would be inspired to buy books. The booksellers haven't yet (after three weeks) answered.
Maureen Duffy
Writers' Guild of Great Britain, 430 Edgware Road, London W2, Brigid Brophy
Writers' Action Group, 3/185 Old Brompton Road, London SW5.
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