Ongoing funding to support the publication of educational books (official press release)
The Minister for the Arts and Sport, Senator George Brandis, announced today that the Educational Lending Right programme will now receive ongoing funding.
The programme, which makes payments to authors and publishers whose books are held in educational libraries, and whose funding was due to lapse in 2008, is now secure.
“I am delighted that this popular programme, widely supported by Australian authors, is now ongoing,” Senator Brandis said today.
“The Educational Lending Right programme is an important contributor to the livelihood of many Australian authors and publishers and the Australian Government is pleased to continue this support for high-quality educational publishing in Australia.
“The programme is helping to enrich Australian culture. It supports the development of Australian writing and it is unique to Australia, as no other schemes aimed at educational publishing operate anywhere else in the world.”
The Educational Lending Right programme provides payments to eligible Australian creators and publishers, on the basis that they are missing out on potential royalty payments when their books are borrowed from educational libraries, rather than purchased. The Government’s Public Lending Right programme provides the same support for works held in public libraries.
The Educational Lending Right programme was established in 2000–01 as an element of the Book Industry Assistance Plan. It received funding of $35 million for the period 2000–01 to 2003–04. Following a review of the programme in 2003, $44 million was provided in the 2004–05 Budget to continue the scheme for the next four years.
In 2006–07 Educational Lending Right payments of $10.4 million were made to over 10 000 authors and publishers—9887 of the claimants were creators and 374 were publishers.
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