The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 entitles the legal deposit libraries to either a print or an electronic copy of a text, but not to both. Following discussions between the legal deposit libraries and the publishers, the decision as to which format will be deposited is taken on a publisher-by-publisher basis rather than for an individual work. In other words, once a publisher begins to deposit electronic texts all of their publications will be received in that format. As yet a relatively small number of publishers have made the transition, although these include most of the larger academic publishers. The legal deposit libraries will continue to receive printed texts, particularly from non-academic material, from many publishers for many years.

Currently electronic legal deposit (eLD) extends to books, journals and maps, with other material added at regular intervals.

UK Web Archive

The UK Web Archive is a collection of archived UK websites created by the Legal Deposit libraries in the UK as part of our commitment to preserve web resources permanently for future researchers.

Most archived sites have been acquired under Legal Deposit legislation and are therefore only viewable from designated Electronic Legal Deposit PCs.

Further information on the UK Web Archive can be found here:

https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/legal-deposit/uk-web-archive