Legal Deposit of Digital Material in the UK: Recent Developments and the International Context

Abstract

There is a move in the UK towards the extension of the legal deposit system to digital publications. The British Library has been prominent in pushing for this. After consultation, the government set up a Working Party to develop recommendations on how to achieve a comprehensive national archive including non-print material. The Working Party recommended a statutory and distributed system for deposit. The government accepted the need for legislation and asked the Working Party to carry out further work on definitions, the impact on business and an interim voluntary code of practice for some types of non-print material. The code of practice came into operation at the beginning of 2000. Countries around the world are increasingly amending their legal deposit legislation to include digital material. Most countries include tangible publications and exclude online publications. Common issues that the organizations responsible for implementing digital legal deposit have to deal with include the continuing need for definitions of terms, methods for depositing and processing digital material, especially online material, costs of implementing systems, preservation and access issues, including security and licensing. A great deal of research and development work is being carried out, and although there are many problems to sort out, some depositories are now moving towards procuring working systems.