In addition to the social security scheme for freelance artists (see also chapter 4.1.3) and income tax deductions on creative work (see also chapter 4.1.4), there is a system of funding to support new musical works, ballet and folklore choreography and dramatic works. Public servants are still free to engage in work outside of their institutions and therefore, all successful actors or musicians are permitted to work for more than one institutional or non-institutional group.
With the Librarianship Act (2001), Slovenia started to meet certain responsibilities towards the authors of works which are borrowed from public libraries. The law stipulates that a library compensation scheme to support authors is to be introduced on the basis of funds generated from the public lending of books. Special rules were adopted, which not only determine the extent to which the state has to provide support for this purpose, but defines the types of work and which authors are eligible to receive compensation. By introducing a library compensation scheme, the state wished to encourage creativity in different art fields. The funds generated from this scheme are distributed, on the one hand, to living authors on the basis of lending frequency in libraries. On the other hand, the funds are used for working scholarships given to promising authors of a high quality. All who are entitled to receive compensation must have their works available for lending in general libraries (with the exception of other kinds of libraries, i.e. school or high school libraries) and they must contain texts, illustrations, photographs, music or film. In 2011, 823 010 EUR was allocated for this purpose.
Persons eligible to obtain library compensation and working scholarships are authors, poets, authors of other text based works, translators, illustrators, photographers, music and film authors. The library compensation can be obtained by authors from the lending of original and translated books, audio-cassettes, CD records, video cassettes and DVDs, provided that all works, which are available in libraries, were borrowed over a certain threshold. Working scholarships, however, have to be applied for via public tenders, which are managed by the relevant authors / artists association; the latter are given the right to implement this scheme on the basis of a public tender issued by the Ministry of Culture.
Slovenian libraries are included in Co-operative Online Bibliographic System & Services (COBISS), which makes it possible to track library loans. In the framework of the COBISS system, a special web application for implementing the library compensation has been created which means that each year authors can consult the system and find out for themselves whether they qualify for library compensation and notify the Ministry in the event that they are entitled to receive compensation. The system also enables authors to review the data on their books and make corrections.
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