We were alerted to the fact that The Library Campaign reached the ripe old age of 40 on Sunday 4 February. The conference which led to the founding of the campaign was held in Sheffield on Saturday 4 February 1984 and Terry Hanstock, one of the organisers of that conference, wrote to Public Libraries News to highlight the anniversary. Those of us who were around then and are still active in the Campaign thought the conference was on 4 March but would trust the people who actually did the work.
Terry mentions in his email to PLN that Paul Foot made a donation to the organisers, which helped start the Campaign. Our recollection is that what he said on the day was along the lines of ‘I don’t think we should all turn up to a conference and go away thinking it was very interesting and a good day out – something should come from it so I am donating my Public Lending Right payment to help with that.’ It was the first year that authors received PLR payments.
Photo by Robert Anderson on Unsplash
