Abstract
The most essential task of national libraries, and the one which more than any other makes them what they are, is that they are responsible for acquiring, preserving and making accessible the publications (of all kinds) of the country. Therefore it follows that legal deposit – the objective of which is to build a collection of the national literature – must be of fundamental importance for national libraries. This paper sets out the current position with regard to the legal deposit of non-print works in the UK. At the time of writing a public consultation was under way on draft Regulations, Guidance and Impact Assessments for the legal deposit of all non-print works. The paper also summarizes the findings of an international survey of national libraries undertaken in 2009 to determine the extent of national implementations of electronic legal deposit. This confirmed that e-legal deposit is now widespread with 82% of respondents reporting that they have either implemented it at the very least for publications on CD. Only 18% had not and, in such cases, national libraries were actively collecting material on a selective and/or voluntary basis.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.