Open up public lending right data

Dave Rowe

A recent government consultation has recently confirmed that the British Library will be able to expand the sample size of public lending right, to potentially collect comprehensive lending data across all UK public library authorities. This won't just be stats of numbers of books lent, it will be the detail of every book loaned in local authority run public libraries.

Support from across the library sector to make this data openly and publicly available would be the biggest development and innovation in library data ever seen. it would allow for shared tools and services to analyse and research the data, and provide countless advocacy opportunities, not least to engage authors, contributors and publishers. The data would celebrate the success and engagement of a core public library function.

The library comunity would need to push the British Library PLR team to ensure that any changes to PLR are implemented alongside an open by default policy. Release data at a regular basis, moving towards the goal of nightly data extracts. The PLR team as well as the board, and the BL should be engaged to make this happen.

Advocacy and thought leadership