Thanks to all who participated in ELR 2012
Educational Lending Right (ELR) school library survey is an Australian cultural program run by the Australian Government. SCIS manages the ELR survey on behalf of the Australian Government. The ELR survey collects data to calculate 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 to assist book creators to continue producing Australian books.
600 schools across Australia are selected each year to participate in ELR. This includes schools with enrolments over 100 from all sectors and that use library systems compatible with ELR software.
SCIS started approaching the schools from September, requesting data files be created and provided to us. We were delighted that by the end of term 3 we had already received 54 results! And by the first week of November we have reached all our result targets.
We would also like to acknowledge the ongoing support and assistance from the library system vendors, Sydney, Canberra/Goulburn and Brisbane Catholic Education Offices IT Support, and NSW and ACT Education Dept IT Support who support ELR.
Feedback from participants
The overwhelming feedback is that participation in ELR is straightforward. 96% of participants rated the ELR process as ‘not time-consuming’ (from a few minutes to half an hour to overnight – depending on the library system) and 94% of participants completed the survey independently with no assistance required from ESA or their library system provider.
Comments included…
- ‘I did the copying (CAL) survey last year. When I saw this survey, I thought: Oh, here we go again. But this one was very quick and easy. Thanks’
- ‘We are pleased our information provided will assist our Australian book creators and publishers.’
ELR 2012 goes green
In the interests of reducing the paperwork delivered to schools, we provided more information about ELR online and 97% of respondents noted that these online instructions and information were quite adequate for them to do the survey.
Thanks from our authors
We are very grateful to all the schools who took the time to engage with our request to participate in ELR. Australian book creators are also very appreciative of your support.
‘Despite having over thirty books to my name the ELR payment is still a major part of my income and without which it would be even harder to survive in this difficult industry.’
Read more about ELR and the value Australian book creators have for ELR in each issue of Connections or on the ELR web pages.