As noted in Chapter 4: ‘Libraries’ responses in the UK – historical background’, a constant running theme has been the supply of books and other materials.

One model for provision was that developed by the Polish Library which was established in the 1940s, lending collections of books in Polish to libraries across the UK (see for example Sen and Listwon, 2009), and which continues today (Biblioteka Polska POSK w Londynie, 2021).

During the 1960s and 1970s, as Claire M. Lambert noted (Lambert, 1969), a numbr of library authorities were building up individual collections; during the 1970s, Birmingham Library Service took this a step forward and established its collection as a ‘Library of Asian Languages’, lending titles in bulk to other local authorities (Dolan, 1992); by 1976 it had a stock of some 18,000 books (Library Advisory Council and Community Relations Commission, 1976).

The Cooperative of Indic Language Library Authorities (CILLA) was founded in 1980 by LASER. The aims were: to improve the quality of cataloguing of Indic language material throughout the LASER region and to lay down guidelines for standardisation; to increase the possibility of interlending the material, in particular by creating a worthwhile union catalogue; to provide facilities for book selection meetings for all LASER authorities wishing to take the CILLA service; to increase the bibliographical control of Indic language material; and to increase co-operation between Indic language specialists in the LASER authorities (see for example Lipniacka, 1994b; Plaister, 1985). By the early 1990s CILLA had grown to include groupings in the South-West, Midlands, northern England and Scotland (Lipniacka, 1994a, 181).

In parallel, schemes were being developed elsewhere in the UK, including SEALS in the West Midlands Regional Library System, which covered ‘… languages of the European Union, i.e. French, German, Spanish and Italian, and is more a co-operative regional purchasing scheme than a circulating library.’ (Lipniacka, 1994b, 167)

Again according to Ewa Lipniacka, in the early 1990s, CILLA, The Polish Central Circulating Library, SEALS, the Bradford Subscription Library (Indic language material), the Westminster Chinese Circulating Library and several others got together under the auspices of the Library and Information Cooperation Council to form LINGUALINC, an umbrella group for the co-operatives providing access to materials in community languages (see Lipniacka, 1994b, 167–168).