The US Library of Congress has decided that Robert Burns was Scottish....

The literary world was hailing a remarkable coup yesterday after the United States Library of Congress – one of the largest and most influential in the world – agreed to reverse a decision to classify all Scottish writers under the general heading of English.

The original move, which was disclosed by The Times, had meant that the term “Scottish Literature” was no longer to be used. Instead, Scottish authors from Burns, Scott and Stevenson to Irvine Welsh, Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin were reclassified as English writers, causing a storm of protest from politicians, academics, libraries and publishers.

Now the library has backed down. In an e-mail sent yesterday to the National Library of Scotland and the British Library, it announced: “After reviewing thoughtful comments received from several correspondents, the Library of Congress will be reinstating headings for Scottish literature, Scottish poetry, and similar headings.

“The reinstatement will appear on a future weekly list of subject headings issued by the Cataloguing Policy and Support Office. Bibliographic records will also be updated to restore former subject entries.”

The decision was welcomed by authors across Scotland. Rankin, the crime writer, described it as “a victory for common sense”. He said it would please authors and academic researchers. His Inspector Rebus novels – written and set in Edinburgh – would have been filed under “Detective and Mystery stories, English” had the Library of Congress retained its new divisions.

“From the point of the writer, there is a pleasure in looking at the copyright page of one of your book and seeing the way that it is inscribed. In my case you might see: ‘Crime Fiction – Scottish – Edinburgh’ or even ‘Crime Fiction – British – Scottish – Edinburgh’, and I don’t mind that. But the way that I write is very different from the way that an English writer like Agatha Christie would have written, or even Ruth Rendell would write today,” said Rankin.

Cairns Craig, Professor of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen, also welcomed the Library of Congress’s change of heart. “It is a matter of logic that if these things are going to be categorised by nations, then Scottish literature has to be an independent national literature, even though it is not an independent national state.”

The campaign to have the policy reversed began after The Times revealed it last autumn. Linda Fabiani, the Scottish Culture Minister, raised the issue with the Democratic congressman Mike McIntyre, of North Carolina, a member of the Friends of Scotland caucus. Further pressure was applied by the American Modern Language Association after its annual conference in Chicago last month. The National Library of Scotland also threw its weight behind the campaign.