Writers Blocked: The Debate over Public Lending Right in the United States during the 1980s

This article traces the movement led by the Authors Guild in the United States from 1979 to 1989 to establish a Public Lending Right (PLR)—a system to compensate authors when copies of their books are borrowed from public libraries. Librarians responded with general wariness. A 1981 special issue of Library Trends and a 1983 Library of Congress symposium aired the PLR debate. Two bills in Congress that would have formed commissions to study PLR died in committee. The article explores efforts and arguments writers and librarians put forward regarding PLR and suggests reasons why the PLR movement failed.