CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 56, July 2006 Special topic: Legal deposit system
What is Legal Deposit?
Legal Deposit is a statutory provision which obliges publishers to deposit copies of their publications in designated libraries in the country of publication. Under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and Acts within the various Australian States, a copy of any work published in Australia must be deposited with the National Library and the appropriate State Library.
Put simply, the National Library of Australia, State Libraries and some other libraries are entitled to one free copy of every work published in Australia. It must be the ‘best copy’, it must be delivered at the publisher’s expense and it must be received within one or two months of publication.
Legal Deposit at the National Library of Australia
Legal Deposit enables the National Library to fulfil one of
its
primary functions as defined in the National Library Act 1960- ‘to
maintain and develop a national collection of library material,
including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to
Australia and the Australian people’.
The Copyright Act defines library material as a ‘book,
periodical (e.g. newsletter, annual report), newspaper, pamphlet, and
sheet of letterpress, sheet music, map, plan, chart or table’.
Electronic publications are omitted as they did not exist when the Act
was first written. The legal deposit provisions of the Copyright Act
1968 are currently under review and it is hoped that electronic
publications may be included in the future.
Each year the Legal Deposit Unit receives and catalogues approximately 12 000 items. These items arrive from commercial publishers, private individuals, clubs, churches, societies, universities and organisations. They represent the full scope of Australian publishing, from local histories through to scientific publications, and everything in between. This is a very solid basis for a comprehensive collection of Australian publications and provides the means for research into all aspects of Australian life, history, culture and artistic, commercial, technical and scientific endeavour.
What are the benefits of legal deposit?
The National Library and other deposit libraries assume an obligation to preserve all material lodged with them. Legal deposit ensures that the works of authors and publishers will survive for the use of future generations.
All material received is catalogued and made available through Libraries Australia, an online shared cataloguing system forming the basis of the Australian National Bibliographic Database. Libraries Australia is accessed in over 1250 libraries throughout Australia.
Claiming legal deposit titles
Each week the Legal Deposit Unit spends approximately 20 hours
claiming titles that have not been deposited. The unit claims from both
commercial and non-commercial publishers and from a variety of sources,
including:
- Recent Australian Publications (RAP) list
- Cataloguing in Publication list
- Printouts from Purchased Monographs Unit (where the National Library has purchased a lending copy and identified the deposit copy has not been received)
- Publications mentioned in newspaper articles, book reviews and general advertising
- Publisher catalogues
Once the Legal Deposit Unit has identified an outstanding
title then a letter is sent to the publisher explaining the
requirements of legal deposit and asking for a copy to be deposited.
Last year the unit began a project to better promote legal
deposit in Australia. This project aims to endorse legal deposit to
publishers who might not already be familiar with its requirements.
Greater compliance with legal deposit provisions will assist the
National Library to develop a comprehensive collection of Australian
publications. This project has yielded excellent results with more
material arriving into the library.
Contact details
The address to send legal deposit material intended for the National Library of Australia is:
Legal Deposit Unit
National Library of Australia
CANBERRA ACT 2600
02 6262 1312
To find out more about legal deposit in Australia please visit our website
http://www.nla.gov.au/services/ldeposit.html
Copyright (C)2006 National Library of Australia
