Public Lending Right 14 February 1988

Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.

This is one of his broadcasts to Japan

Zubari for 14 February 1988

Hello listeners! About this time every year, the Government tells me how many of my books have been borrowed from Public Libraries during last year.

We have a very strong Public Library system in Britain. There are altogether 5,500 libraries. all over the country.

Last year, about 639,000,000 books were borrowed from Public Libraries. The libraries are computerized, and the Government pays living authors one penny for each borrowing of his or her book.

I have four books in the Public Libraries – two translations from Japanese Buddhism, one on Shogi, and one on Judo. I have just received a cheque for forty-four pounds, which means that my books have been borrowed 4,400 times.

This is regarded as quite a good total for ‘serious non-fiction’. The big totals are for romantic love novels, read by women. There an 80-year old woman author whose 57 romantic novels were borrowed 1,000,000 times. (I once skimmed through one: a ridiculous story, but told cleverly.)

She ought to get 10,000 pounds, but the Government limits any individual author to only 5,000. Another best-selling author of such romances, a man, always gives his 5,000 to charity.

He recently proposed that all those who score above 500,000 borrowings (that is, 5,000 pounds) should get nothing at all. He said: “We are very popular and have sold millions of books. So, we don’t need the money from Public Library borrowing. Give the money to the authors whose books are borrowed very little. They need it.”

I admired him for that. I have noticed that many rich people are rather mean. They seem to hate to spend money. But perhaps that is how they got rich.

© Trevor Leggett