National Book Council chairman Mark Camilleri.

Trevor Zahra was the most popular author of the 55 who applied to be remunerated when their books were borrowed from public libraries.

More than 13,500 loans were registered between September 15 and December 8 but thousands of new books still have to be catalogued.

“The public lending rights system is fair because every loan has equal value but there are structural problems that are not encouraging adults to borrow books.

“The Central Public Library purchases most of the books published locally but there is a huge backlog in the cataloguing unit, meaning books remain in storage. There are about 10,000 books that still need to be catalogued and if there aren’t new titles on the shelves to attract people to public libraries they will turn to other forms of leisure,” National Book Council chairman Mark Camilleri said.

The scheme, which brings the island in line with an EU directive on rights related to intellectual property, was welcomed by authors who saw it as a form of recognition of their work.

Authors who published books in Malta under an ISBN issued by the council have to apply to join the scheme and remuneration is then calculated according to lending statistics.

If there aren’t new titles on the shelves to attract people to public libraries they will turn to other forms of leisure

In the pipeline for the past three years, the scheme could only be implemented in 2014 when the software compiling loan data was installed at the 43 public libraries.

When the scheme was announced last October, Mr Camilleri said the council had €10,000 available. However, the budget has now been increased to €25,000 to cover the last quarter of 2014 and four allocations for this year. The government has increased the council’s budget to nearly €250,000. This means that about €5,000 of the council’s budget will be distributed every quarter and the first funds will be launched today.

Authors get about 37c per loan and the number of loans per author varied between one and 1,000. Mr Zahra registered 5,128 loans.

The most popular were children’s books.

Book readership is gradually increasing, but there are still thousands of news books that have not yet been put on the shelves of public libraries. Photos: Chris Sant Fournier

The backlog in cataloguing and the resultant supply of new books was keeping adults away from libraries at a time when these had to be aggressive and proactive because books were competing with new technologies, Mr Camilleri said.

He noted that although at the beginning of the millennium ebooks did gain popularity to the detriment of printing, the tables were turning and this trend was not as strong nowadays.

“Printing is gradually growing again in the West but this trend can even be seen in China and South America. Ebooks need an infrastructure like internet and computers and not everyone can afford these,” he added.

He confirmed a recent trend reported by the British media that the rise of the digital age helped boost visitors to the national library, suggesting that the more people’s lives became “screen-based” the more they valued physical artefacts. This showed there was a renewed interest in print.

One disappointing factor, however, was that bookshops that used to act as cultural agents had closed down and those still open were more commercialised.

“Those bookshops used to strongly promote Maltese books and classics, not just international bestsellers. Although demand for interesting books, including Man Booker Prizes, is high, readers have resorted to buying them online.

“The 30,000 people who came to the book fair did not come looking for Sydney Sheldon and Dan Brown but they came because it was a cultural event,” he noted.

Malta, however, still had a limited market, so the council was planning to promote Maltese books translated into other languages at the London Book Fair this year.

“We want to promote Maltese authors and show that Malta is not just about beaches,” Mr Camilleri said.

Top authors:

• Trevor Zahra with 5,128 loans
• Charles Casha with 942 loans
• Clare Azzopardi with 924 loans