Issue 90

Educational Lending Right school library survey

Educational Lending Right (ELR) is an Australian Government cultural program administered by the Ministry for the Arts, Attorney-General's Department.

SCIS manages the ELR school library survey on behalf of the Ministry for the Arts. The ELR school library survey collects data used to estimate the number of copies of specific titles held in Australian school libraries. These book counts are the basis for payments to Australian book creators. The payments are made to assist book creators and publishers to continue producing Australian books.

Schools eligible to be selected

Every year, in September, 600 schools are selected as a representative sample of all Australian schools and are then invited to participate in the ELR survey. They are chosen from a list of all Australian schools with enrolments of over 100, from all states and sectors, that use one of the following library management systems compatible with the ELR software:

• Access-It
• Bibliotech
• Bookmark
• Libcode
• OCLC's Amlib
• SirsiDynix's Symphony
• Softlink's Alice, Oliver and Oasis
• Folletts' Athena, Circ/Cat and Destiny.

Has your school participated?

Over the past ten surveys nearly 4,000 schools have participated by providing book count data. Although it is preferable to have new schools participating every year, the selection criteria means that some schools have participated more than once. We are very appreciative of schools participating and helping us to support Australian book creators.

How does your school participate?

Selected schools receive an ELR invitation package through the mail. This will have easy-to-follow instructions to provide a data file report or a backup file from their school library management system. Previous participants report it to be a quick and painless process.

Australian book creators value ELR

Many Australian book creators have told us how much they appreciate the support of school libraries through their participation in the ELR survey. We have published some of these statements in previous issues of Connections and on the ELR website. You can read them at: www.esa.edu.au/scis/elr_value_statements.html