Legal deposit for publishers

Under legal deposit legislation, publishers have a statutory obligation to deposit a copy of every work published in the UK or Ireland with the six legal deposit libraries, which includes the National Library of Scotland.

Legal Deposit helps ensure that a nation's published output is collected and preserved for the future. As a publisher, this means that your content will be securely preserved while also being made accessible in the reading rooms of the legal deposit libraries.

Inclusion in library catalogues, online discovery services and the British National Bibliography helps promote these publications, highlighting them to a worldwide audience, including the book trade. Preserving publications representing all authors, communities and interest groups is a key aim of legal deposit. Sending us your publications helps enable future research into all aspects of our culture and society.

UK legal deposit legislation dates from 1710, and further back in England. The current legislation governing UK legal deposit is the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 and the Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print) Regulations 2013.

The reciprocal Irish Copyright and Related Rights Acts 2000 to 2019 allows the legal deposit libraries to receive a copy of any work published in the UK or Ireland.

The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 applies to anyone who publishes in the UK. The Act defines publishing as "the issue of copies of the work to the public". This means that any publication made publicly available, whether for sale or distributed free of charge, is eligible for deposit. The legislation covers bodies ranging from large commercial publishers to local societies, community groups, and individuals.

Legal deposit covers both print and electronic publications, including websites.

Where publications are produced in both print and electronic format, the default for deposit is the print publication, unless you have agreed with the legal deposit libraries to deposit in electronic format.

The following categories of material are not covered by legal deposit:

• Works consisting solely of sound or film

• Intranets

• Emails

• Restricted personal data

• Internal documents such as meeting minutes and board papers.

See our legal deposit explained guide for more information about what we collect and how to access it.

Depositing printed material

The Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries requests and receives publications on behalf of five of the legal deposit libraries, with the exception of the British Library. The Agency distributes one copy to each of the five libraries, including the National Library of Scotland.

Information on how to deposit your print publications with the Agency is available on their website.

Publishers who currently send single copies of their publications direct to the National Library of Scotland should continue to do so. Contact us at acq@nls.uk if you have any questions.

Publishers must also send one copy separately to the British Library. Visit the British Library website for information on how to deposit to them.

If your publications are only produced in electronic format , or you have agreed with the libraries to deposit in electronic format, then the electronic publication should be deposited. You only need to deposit one electronic copy of each publication to meet the requirements of the legislation.

Depositing electronic material

If your publications are only produced in electronic format, or you have agreed with the libraries to deposit in electronic format, then the electronic publication should be deposited. You only need to deposit one electronic copy of each publication to meet the requirements of the legislation.

Publishers based in Scotland are asked to contact us at acq@nls.uk about depositing their electronic publications at the National Library of Scotland. Electronic publications deposited with the National Library of Scotland are also made available at the five other legal deposit libraries.

Where possible, we ask Scottish publishers to agree for us to provide offsite access to their publications. This will ensure that the content is more widely available and reaches a broader audience.

UK publishers based outside Scotland should contact the British Library at LDO-Electronic@bl.uk to arrange deposit of their electronic publications. Electronic publications deposited with the British Library are also made available at the five other legal deposit libraries. See the British Library website for more information on how to deposit.

All deposited electronic publications are securely stored, preserved, catalogued and made accessible to registered readers within the legal deposit libraries.

Web archiving is how we collect websites and related content from the open web. We use automated web crawling tools and software to harvest and collect web sites and preserve the content for posterity. Helpful tutorial videos about this process are available on the UK Web Archive YouTube channel. This content is collected under legal deposit legislation.

Archived websites are available to view through the UK Web Archive Portal. For more information about how to view them, see our Legal deposit explained guide. 

Due to the 2023 British Library cyber-attack access to the UK Web Archive is not currently available, but we continue to harvest Scottish and UK web content.

If you are a Scottish publisher of web content or website owner, please contact us at acq@nls.uk so that we can ensure your web content is collected and preserved.

For more information on what and how we web archive, see our Web archiving page.

The legal deposit libraries are committed to ensuring that UK-published material that is collected or deposited under legal deposit legislation is preserved and made available for researchers to use in library premises.

However, the libraries are also committed to ensuring that material is archived and displayed lawfully, and in accordance with policies agreed with stakeholder representatives.

The legal deposit libraries operate a notice and take down policy for specific circumstances in which access should be withdrawn or deposited material should be removed.

Reasons for withdrawing access

Valid reasons for withdrawing or removing access to material include, but are not limited to:

• Agreements for embargoing access

• Court injunctions

• Legal requirements

• Proven violations of copyright or database right, not covered by legal deposit legislation or a limitation or exception in UK copyright law

• Material that has been found to be libellous or defamatory

• Breaches of confidentiality.

How to make a takedown request

If you have found legal deposit material that you believe should not be available to users, please notify us in writing, marked 'Urgent'.

Your request can either be sent electronically to acq@nls.uk or by letter to the National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EW, and should include the following information:

• Your contact details

• Sufficient information, including exact catalogue reference and full URL, for us to identify the relevant item(s)

• The nature of your complaint, and reason for notifying us

• If your complaint concerns intellectual property rights, confirmation that you are the rights holder, or an authorised representative of the rights holder

• If your complaint concerns libel, defamation, confidentiality or personal data, confirmation that you are either the publisher or the subject of the material in question, or their authorised representative.

On receipt of a takedown request:

• We will acknowledge receipt of your request by email or letter

• We will make an initial assessment of the request on its merits and, pending our inquiries, may remove or disable access to the relevant material.

• You will be advised of the decision, and will have a right of appeal.

ISBNs and ISSNs

ISBNs and ISSNs are internationally recognised standards used by the book trade, publishers and libraries for the identification of books and serials. Using ISBNs or ISSNs is not a requirement for depositing your publications under legal deposit but it can help in their identification and management.

To obtain an ISBN for a book or monograph contact the UK and Ireland ISBN Agency at isbn.agency@nielseniq.com or visit the Bookdata ISBN store website.

To request an ISSN for a serial publication contact the UK ISSN Centre at the British Library at issn-uk@bl.uk or visit the British Library Collection metadata services page.

Cataloguing-in-publication programme (CIP)

The Cataloguing-in-publication programme (CIP) provides libraries and the book trade with records of new and forthcoming books in advance of publication in the UK and Ireland.

This programme is operated for the British Library by Bibliographic Data Services Limited. For more information, contact BDS at info@bdslive.com or visit the Bibliographic Data Services website.