LICENSING laws may prevent Berkeley Library from lending books when volunteers take over its running later this year.

Berkeley Library is one of seven libraries which will fall outside of Gloucestershire County Council’s statutory provision and into the hands of volunteers as part of the council’s new library strategy.

But campaign group Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries have discovered these facilities may not be covered by the Public Lending Rights (PLR) licence.

Johanna Anderson, spokeswoman for the group, said the council had ignored their repeated warnings about the complexities of library management.

She said: "Loaning books is the bread and butter of a library service. To cast adrift libraries and to leave them in a position where they potentially cannot loan books is an outrageous oversight by Gloucestershire County Council."

PLR is the right for authors to receive copyright payments for the loans of their books by public libraries and is based on lending data collected at libraries.

Once Berkeley Library is no longer a public library run by the local authority, and is not covered by the PLR licence, authors could refuse to allow them to loan their books.

The running of Berkeley Library is due to be legally transferred to the Berkeley Community Library Committee on November 1, 2012.

The current library premises will be used initially, although the committee is considering two other replacement sites, including White Hart Court.

The exact position Berkeley Library will find itself in is unclear, as the county council is maintaining a link with the community library, providing funding of £10,000 per annum for now, as well as training, computers and access to Gloucestershire Libraries book stock and IT systems.

John Stanton, former Stroud District Councillor for Berkeley and chairman of the Berkeley Community Library Committee, said that while the council had not informed them about this matter, he was hopeful it wouldn’t be a problem.

He said: "Many other community libraries are operating and I’m sure this won’t be a show stopper for Berkeley.

"We must now clarify our relationship with Gloucestershire County Council and this will be part of the ongoing discussions we have with them."

Jo Grills, Gloucestershire County Council's operations director for libraries, said it was currently unclear nationally whether community libraries would be affected by this issue.

She said: "We are, of course, looking into this and will advise communities as soon as we know any more."