BERKELEY Library will be able to operate as normal when it is handed over to the community in November.

There had been concerns that volunteer-run "big society" facilities would not be covered by Public Lending Right legislation, and therefore need to seek permission from individual authors to loan their books.

PLR legislation allows authors to receive royalties when their books are lent from public libraries. This is based on lending data collected from a sample of public library authorities.

Jim Parker, PLR Registrar, said that while Berkeley Community Library would not be covered by PLR, as it is outside the statutory library service, it would be able to loan books normally.

This is because volunteer-run libraries will be treated as ‘prescribed libraries,’ a category of libraries which can lend books without seeking copyright permissions.

A Gloucestershire County Council spokeswoman said: "We have spoken to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) about this issue and following this discussion we still believe that community libraries will be able to lend books."

But Johanna Anderson, spokeswoman for Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries, said they were angry that they had been forced to do the council’s work for them.

"Because the council failed in their duty to the public of Gloucestershire, we had to step in and spend many hours on research and communication with the DCMS and PLR to get clarification on this serious matter, a matter that could have opened community organisations up to litigation.

"We should not have to supervise and make sure our authority is acting lawfully."

And the debate over the future of Gloucestershire’s libraries has prompted the Society of Authors (SoA) to write to the culture secretary Ed Vaizey regarding the impact volunteer-run libraries will have on authors.

Nicola Solomon, head of the SoA, believes lending may still be unlawful.

She said: "Dozens of volunteer-run libraries are being set up nationwide amid confusion over whether the government is in breach of European copyright legislation... If volunteer libraries are not covered under the PLR scheme, then lending by them could be unlawful unless authorised by the author."