About Legal Deposit

What is legal deposit?

Legal deposit is a statutory provision which obliges publishers to deposit copies of their publications in libraries in the country in which they are published.

The concept of legal deposit originated in France in the early 1500s. King Francois I issued a decree in 1537 requiring every printer in the country to deposit one copy of each book produced in his printing office. This decree became known as 'Ordonnance de Montpellier' and was the first law on legal deposit in the world.

In Australia, under the Copyright Act 1968 and various state Acts, a copy of any work published in Australia must be deposited with the National Library of Australia and the appropriate state library.

Legal deposit extends not only to commercial publishers, but also to private individuals, clubs, churches, societies and other organisations. Legal deposit of the material is the sole responsibility of the publisher or author.

Legal deposit should not be confused with copyright - a protection granted automatically in Australia from the time a work is created.

What is the purpose of legal deposit?

The primary purpose of legal deposit is to preserve a nation’s documentary cultural heritage. Legal deposit ensures that the works of Australian writers and publishers are preserved for the use of present and future generations and provides for research into all aspects of Australian life and culture.

The National Library and other deposit libraries assume an obligation to preserve all material lodged with them. The comprehensive collections of Australian publications formed in this way provide the means for research into all aspects of Australian life, history, culture, artistic, commercial, technical and scientific endeavour.

What are the benefits of legal deposit?

Records for legal deposit publications are available through the State Library of Victoria catalogues and Libraries Australia, an online shared cataloguing system provided by the National Library of Australia, forming the basis of the Australian National Bibliographic Database.

This means that all publications are brought to the attention of potential users through author, title, subject and many sophisticated electronic search strategies. Libraries Australia makes accessible more than 40 million items, in over 1300 libraries throughout Australia.

Social sciences and humanities literature published through scholarly periodicals and conferences are indexed in the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS).

Health and medical literature published in periodicals and conferences are indexed in the Australian Medical Index (AMI).

What are the requirements of legal deposit?

What are the publishers' legal obligations?

• Publishers are required to supply one copy of each published work to the State Library at their own expense (including postage).
• Copies should be supplied within 60 days of publication.
• Copies must be of the best quality.
  If the work is published in both hardback and paperback, the publisher should supply one sample of each.
• If there are any subsequent editions, the publisher should supply those which have been revised, corrected, enlarged, reformatted, or abridged in any way. 
• There is no need to deposit a publication that is reprinted or re-issued with no alterations to the format, text, or illustrations.
• The publisher should supply all versions where the publisher has changed, even if the text has not been altered.
• The publisher should supply all versions in different languages.

Definition of a work

• A work can be a book, a periodical such as a newsletter or annual report, a newspaper, a piece of sheet music, a map, plan, chart, table, program, catalogue, brochure or pamphlet.
• In Victoria it also includes material published in other formats such as CD-ROMs and videocassettes.

Definition of publication

• A work is deemed to have been published if reproductions of the work or edition have been made available (whether by sale or otherwise) to the public.  

Definition of a publisher

• The ‘publisher’ is the person who supplies the capital and provides the editorial assistance needed to transform the author's ideas/manuscript into a finished product, and who issues or distributes these publications to the public.

Best copy

• The copy of the material must be a copy of the whole material and must be the best copy of that material as published. For example, if both a hardcover bound edition and a paperback edition are published, one copy of the hardcover edition must be deposited.

Second and subsequent editions

• A copy of a second or later edition in which copyright subsists does not have to be deposited unless it contains additions or alterations to the text or the illustrations. If a second or later edition does contain such additions or alterations then the best copy of that edition must also be deposited. If a book is reprinted with a change to the title, or any part of the content, or by a different publisher, it is considered a new edition.

Claiming

• When a legal deposit library finds that it has not received a published item on legal deposit it claims the publication from the publisher. This ensures that the collecting of currently published Australiana is as complete as possible, and at the same time, reminds publishers of the requirements of legal deposit.

What types of publications are included?

Publications include:

• annual reports
• calendars of tertiary institutions
• company profiles
• conference papers and proceedings
• directories
• discussion documents
• exhibition/gallery catalogues
• guidebooks
• histories of families, groups, districts and organisations
• kits that contain printed texts
• loose-leaf publications and any updates
• magazines, journals and all ongoing publications (serials)
• newsletters of all kinds
• newspapers
• reports
• sheet music
• supplements
• working papers
• yearbooks.

Exempt material includes:

• blank forms, labels, programmes and timetables
• almanacs, calendars and diaries (although those that have a significant amount of text, not just dates may be required)
• ‘activity’ based materials such as colouring books and puzzle books
• ‘in-house’ material such as training/procedure manuals, teaching and course notes, minutes of meetings etc.
• offprints
• press releases
• trade advertising.

What formats are required?

• Books and booklets
• Brochures, pamphlets and leaflets
• Cassettes
• CDs
• CD-ROMs
• Computer disks
• DVDs
• Kits (ie books and other formats)
• Maps, charts, plans and tables
• Microfiche
• Microfilm
• Posters
• Video recordings.

Where to Deposit Victorian Publications

State Library of Victoria

Legal Deposit Librarian
State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: 03 8664 7141 (books, CDs, videos etc); 03 8664 7139 (periodicals and journals)
Fax: 03 9663 1480
Email: legaldeposit@slv.vic.gov.au

When sending legal deposit material to the Library please ensure that you supply a contact name and return address so that a legal deposit acknowledgement can be sent.

Please also ensure that the items are packaged so that they are received in good condition.

National Library of Australia

Legal Deposit Unit
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
Phone: 02 6262 1312
Fax: 02 6273 4492
Email: legaldep@nla.gov.au
Website: http://www.nla.gov.au/services/ldeposit.html

What happens to legal deposit copies?

More than 5000 book and non-book materials, and over 500 new magazines are deposited each year with the State Library of Victoria, and around 10-15,000 issues of serials are received each year.

After deposit, the State Library, as required by the Act, will send a formal acknowledgement for the publication/s (usually within two weeks of deposit). In the case of magazines, an acknowledgement is only sent after the first issue is received. 

A catalogue record is created for each item and will be available both on the State Library’s catalogue and on the Australian National Bibliographic Database (available via Libraries Australia).

The publications are then processed and stored in the Library’s La Trobe ‘Australiana’ Collection, where every effort is made to preserve each item in its original state.

To assist in preservation, limited access is allowed to legal deposit items. Where it is deemed that an item should be made widely available, a second copy will be purchased for public use according to the Library’s Collection & Resources Development Policy.