The mandate of the Public Lending Right Commission is to recognize the significant contribution that Canada’s authors make to its national culture by compensating authors for the presence of their published work in Canada’s public libraries.
About us
The Public Lending Right (PLR) Commission is made up of representatives of national organizations of writers, translators, librarians and publishers. The majority of members are authors. The Commission also includes non-voting representatives from the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, Library and Archives Canada, and Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. The Commission is responsible for setting the general policies of the program, and an Executive Committee carries out these policies.
In 2010-2011, both the Commission and the Executive Committee are chaired by author Ken McGoogan. The PLR Commission has four full-time staff and operates under the administrative aegis of the Canada Council for the Arts. Funding for the PLR program comes from the federal government through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
