Hi there,

 

I �m not a native speaker so wait for their answer but as far as I know the second one is grammatically correct. I hear many times native speakers using the first one though. I guess it is because of the first letter - the indefinite article "a" - the word "a lot of" is composed of. Hope it helps.

Dear Shigu,

"There is a lot of books on the desk" is completely false. "There is" can be followed by a singular noun only. example: there is a lot of water in the bottle. there is a pencil on the table. there is much jam in the jar. Meanwhile, "there are" is always followed by a plural noun like: there are a lot of papers in the folder. there are many people in the street. notice that the word "there" is not the subject of "is" or "are"; the real subject is the noun that comes after verb "be". we can say otherwise: a lot of books are there on the desk, and a lot of water is there in the bottle.

Hope this helps you.