Volunteer-led libraries might result in a reduction in the royalties paid to authors, according to the Society of Authors which has written to the government to seek assurances that the overall royalties fund will not be cut.

Last week the General Secretary of the Society of Authors, Nicola Solomon, wrote to minister for culture communications and creative industries Ed Vaizey after discovering that volunteer-led libraries were not covered by the Public Lending Right (PLR) scheme.

Under the PLR scheme authors are awarded payments when their books are taken out at libraries. The PLR Registrar told campaign group Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries that volunteer libraries outside of the council’s statutory provision would not be included.

In Solomon's letter to Vaizey she said: “We are concerned that taking volunteer libraries out of the scheme will lead to an apparent drop in book loans which will encourage government to propose cutting the already meagre fund still further.”

Authors who have backed the campaign include Sarah Waters and Sir Michael Holroyd.

A DCMS spokesman said: “PLR payments to authors are set annually with the amount going to individual authors based on the number of loans from a sample group of libraries. It is true that the small number of libraries that fall outside statutory local authority provision do not form part of that sample, but this has no effect whatsoever on the total amount of money paid out each year to authors.”

For 2012/2013 the government has allocated £6.3m for PLR with the rate per loan being fixed at 6.05p.

Possible copyright breach

Solomon also said that volunteer libraries could be in danger of breaking copyright laws if they do not have the agreement of authors.

But this was also refuted by the DCMS, a spokesman said: “Copyright legislation does allow libraries which sit outside the public library service run by a local authorities to lend books without being in breach of copyright. This means that a community library does not have to enter into separate agreements with authors to lend books. This is the same position for the many educational and not for profit libraries which lend books.”