John Sumsion

First Registrar of Public Lending Right

John Walbridge Sumsion, statistician: born Gloucester 16 August 1928; Registrar, Public Lending Right 1981-91; OBE 1991; Director, Library and Information Statistics Unit, Loughborough University 1991-96, Senior Fellow, Department of Information Science 1996-2003; Chairman, Statistics Section, International Federation of Library Associations 1995-99; Editor, Library & Information Research News 1997-2001; married 1961 Annette Wilson (two sons, two daughters; marriage dissolved 1979), 1979 Hazel Jones (née English; two stepdaughters); died Rotherby, Leicestershire 21 February 2003.

In July 1981 the Government announced the appointment of John Sumsion, lately a manager with K Shoes, to the newly created post of Registrar of Public Lending Right. It had taken authors 30 long years of campaigning before Parliament had finally passed the PLR Act in 1979. This gave them a legal right to payment when their books were lent out by public libraries. What was the Government thinking of now? How could someone from the shoe trade understand authors' rights and successfully set up and run the new PLR system?

Any doubts about John Sumsion's suitability for the job were soon swept aside as he applied his formidable intellect and extensive management experience to the myriad problems associated with turning the PLR legislation into a workable scheme. When he retired as Registrar 10 years later he left a smoothly successful operation, widely respected for its efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and highly regarded by authors for the clarity of its procedures and the helpfulness of its staff.

John Walbridge Sumsion was born in 1928, one of three sons of Herbert Sumsion, the composer and, for over 50 years, organist at Gloucester Cathedral. John attended St George's Choir School, Windsor Castle, and, when war broke out, went with his American mother to New York, where he spent two years at St Thomas's Choir School. Music was to be an abiding pleasure for him, and he was a talented singer and flautist. He won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a First in History in 1952, followed by graduate school in America.

He joined K Shoes as a graduate trainee in 1954. Thus began a 27-year association with the firm during which he gained experience in all aspects of business management, including (and probably most crucial from a future PLR point of view) responsibility for the introduction of computer systems. But a reorganisation following a merger with Clarks in 1981 led to his departure from the firm.

As he considered his future, the Government was struggling to implement the PLR legislation. Advertisements for the new post of PLR Registrar had been placed in the press. A colleague suggested to Sumsion that this might be a "fun" job. He applied, was interviewed and, to his surprise, was duly offered it. His academic credentials were indisputable, but he felt his business background might place him at a disadvantage. In fact his management experience was exactly what the civil servants were looking for.

He began work in September 1981. He set about familiarising himself with this strange new world of books and authors: he visited libraries, lunched with publishers, sounded out authors' organisations, picked the brains of computer consultants he had used at K Shoes, and (to the amazement of the civil servants) dared consult the redoubtable PLR campaigners Maureen Duffy and Brigid Brophy (Daniel entering the lion's den, as one official saw it).

After two months he was ready to head north to Stockton-on-Tees, where the new PLR office was to be based. He was given a target date of February 1984 for the first PLR payments to authors. Much remained to be done, but he saw that the key to the success of the future PLR operation lay in establishing a workable system of loans data collection in libraries, and in rebuilding bridges with those in the library community who retained doubts about the scheme's validity.

Impervious to official grumblings, he also insisted on revisiting parts of the scheme that he felt (rightly) would prove unworkable. At the same time he was conducting staff interviews by the light of calor-gas lamps as he waited for the installation of electricity at Bayheath House, PLR's new home in Stockton. But good progress was being made with the design and installation of the new PLR computer system. By September 1982 all was ready for the first author registrations, and loans data began flowing in from the 16 libraries in PLR's nationwide sample in early 1983. And so, in February 1984, the first PLR payments were made, with £1.5m distributed to just over 6,000 authors.

In the coming years Sumsion continued to review and refine the scheme. He was encouraged in his endeavours by the PLR Advisory Committee. It was chaired by David Whitaker, with whom he established a lasting rapport built on a conviction that the scheme should be run in the interests of authors and with the minimum of red tape. Sumsion gathered around him at the PLR office a young team who imbibed his approach and established over the years a reputation with authors for cheerful helpfulness and reliability. Authors came to look forward to their annual PLR payments, a welcome antidote to the gloomy February weather. For many in receipt of small payments, the book loans details they received from PLR were more important than the money. They came as a morale booster, feedback from readers hitherto unknown to them.

Sumsion undertook extensive research into the loans data generated by the PLR operation to monitor the accuracy of the sampling procedures. This showed the need for a larger sample and by 1991 he had increased the number of participating library authorities from 16 to 30. The statistics also had potential for publicising the Scheme, and PLR's annual lists of Most Borrowed Authors became regular features in the media. What television quiz show has not featured the question: "According to PLR, who is the most borrowed author in public libraries?" (Catherine Cookson.)

He completed his second five-year appointment as Registrar in 1991. The scheme was running smoothly, its annual payment cycle now well established. It was time to move on, but not before his PLR achievements were recognised by his appointment as OBE.

His work at PLR had whetted his appetite for library statistics. So it was no surprise when he accepted appointment as Director of the Library and Information Statistics Unit (LISU) at Loughborough University. He approached his new responsibilities with his familiar mix of energy, enthusiasm and intolerance of officialdom (in this case university red tape). He set about providing the library world with a new and much-expanded corpus of data on which to base its research and planning, and did all he could to encourage its use.

After five years as Director of LISU he became a Senior Fellow in the university's Department of Information Science. Here he was able to take on consultancy work, teach and promote the importance of statistics for the library sector. In recent years growing ill-health had threatened to restrict his work but he battled on indomitably. He died peacefully at home, appropriately enough listening to music.

Jim Parker