In April 2023, the legal deposit libraries entitled under UK legislation (the British Library, the Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Library of Trinity College Dublin, and the National Library of Wales) are marking 10 years of collecting digital publications: e-books, e-journals, geo-spatial datasets, e-scores for music, and websites. To some extent, this development marked a shift in format: many publishers who previously deposited print copies with the six libraries were transitioned to submitting the e-versions into a shared digital infrastructure. But it also represented a significant increase in the overall collecting remit, particularly through web archiving. And yet, it excludes much of the intellectual and artistic creations that are released every day online, particularly games, music and videos. The 10-year anniversary of the UK legislation, therefore, invites reflection on what has been achieved, how sustainable this huge undertaking is, and how it should evolve. The UK is one of the world’s major publishing markets, with an annual output of over 150,000 titles, and a vast historic corpus: legal deposit has been around for a long time – since 1801 in the case of Trinity College Dublin, and back to the 17th century for the Bodleian Libraries of Oxford. When the ‘Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations 2013′ were introduced, the cost of physical storage was at the forefront of many libraries’ concerns, yet carbon footprint was not an active consideration. As a result of the Regulations, the six libraries have created a seventh transnational e-library on an enormous scale. Against the backdrop of the 10th anniversary, this paper proposes to focus on the economic as well as the environmental sustainability of UK legal deposit, inevitably exploring and probing its value to researchers and to wider society in the process.

1. THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN
LEABHARLANN CHOLÁISTE NA TRÍONÓIDE, OLLSCOIL ÁTHA CLIATH
Peter Dudley (Sub-Librarian, Reading Room Services & Space)
Christoph Schmidt-Supprian (Head of Content Management & Open Scholarship)
The Sustainability of collecting EVERYTHING

4. The Library of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
A BRIEF HISTORY OF UK LEGAL DEPOSIT
1610
Agreement between Sir
Thomas Bodley and
the Stationers’
Company of London
1662
Agreement extended to
Cambridge University and
Royal Library (later to
become the British Library)
1710
Copyright Act 1710, the
first copyright Act in the
world. Gave 14 years of
copyright protection
1801
Act of Union + Copyright
Act of 1801 made Trinity
College Dublin a legal
deposit library
1925
The current list of six UK legal
deposit libraries has been in
place since 1925 with the
formation of the National Library
of Scotland
1927
The Industrial & Commercial
Property (Protection) Act 1927
confirmed reciprocal legal deposit:
Irish publishers continue to deposit
with the 5 UK libraries, as well as
with the National Library and with the
Irish university libraries
2013
The UK’s Legal Deposit Libraries
(Non-Print Works) Regulations
2013, based on an enabling Act
in 2003, started the transition
from print to electronic deposit

5. The Library of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
The British Library, with reading
rooms in London and Yorkshire
THE SIX UK & IRELAND LEGAL DEPOSIT LIBRARIES
5
The National Library of
Scotland, in Edinburgh
The National Library of
Wales, in Aberystwyth
The Bodleian Libraries,
University of Oxford
Cambridge University
Library
The Library of Trinity
College Dublin

6. U K L E G AL D E P O S I T G O V E R N AN C E S T R U C T U R E
J O I N T C O M M I T T E E F O R
L I B R A R I E S & P U B L I S H E R S
S U B - G R O U P S : W E B A R C H I V E ,
E M E R G I N G F O R M A T S E T C .
I N F R A S T R U C T U R E ,
T E C H N I C A L + M E T A D A T A G R O U P S
R E A D E R S E R V I C E S
+ U S E R F O R U M
C H I E F L I B R A R I A N S +
I M P L E M E N T A T I O N G R O U P
Department of
Digital, Culture,
Media & Sport
(DCMS)
C O L L E C T I O N D E V E L O P M E N T &
A C Q U I S I T I O N G R O U P ( C D A S )

7. The Library of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
WHAT IS COLLECTED BY LEGAL DEPOSIT?
Legal Deposit is extremely broad in its application and aims
to be comprehensive and inclusive. It applies to
publishers of all sizes, from individual self-publishers and
small presses, through to the largest multinational publishers.

8. F O R P R I N T P U B L I C AT I O N S :
L E G A L D E P O S I T A P P L I E S T O :
- B o o k s , p a m p h l e t s , m a g a z i n e s , n e w s p a p e r s , j o u r n a l s
- S h e e t m u s i c
- M a p s , p l a n s , c h a r t s , t a b l e s
D E P O S I T M E T H O D :
- P u b l i s h e r s s e n d o n e c o p y t o t h e B r i t i s h L i b r a r y
- T h e o t h e r L D L s c l a i m t h e i r c o p y v i a a n A g e n c y
- I r i s h p u b l i s h e r s a l s o s e n d t o t h e e i g h t I r i s h d e p o s i t l i b r a r i e s

9. 2013/
2014
2014/
2015
2015/
2016
2016/
2017
2017/
2018
2018/
2019
2019/
2020
2020/
2021
2021/
2022
Print Books
96,112 93,747 73,889 62,371 57,908 57,841 33,299 25,018 55,069
Print Journals
(current titles) 15,547 14,038 11,243 9,657 7,254 6,813 5,633 5,500 5,155
Print Journal
Issues 67,756 55,480 39,697 34,486 30,132 29,591 18,369 30,431 20,852
Growth of Print Collections in Trinity
TCD holds approx. 7 million volumes, of which 6 million
(approx. 85%) were received under legal deposit

10. FOR DIGITAL PUBLICATIONS:
- Ebooks and ejournals
- Government publications and parliamentary papers
- Websites
- Born digital maps
- Music notation
- Innovative and complex digital publications (‘emerging
formats’)

11. 1.3 PB
Archived Web growing
at 90TB per year
>10 Million
eJournal articles
3.3 TB
digital map datasets
800K
eBooks
56K
Born digital music
scores
For context, YouTube
storage was 300 PB in 2022

12. The sustainability of legal
deposit comes down to
competing demands

13. A M N E S I A M E M O RY
TO L E R AT E P R E S E RVAT I O N R I S K S M I N I M I S E P R E S E RVAT I O N R I S K S
CONSOLIDATE
(Maximise sustainability)
F O C U S O N T R A D I T I O N A L M E D I A E X PA N D TO N E W M E D I A
EXPAND
(Maximise value)
L I M I T A C C E S S E X PA N D A C C E S S
E N E R G Y, H A R D WA R E , T R A N S P O R T, S TO R A G E , S TA F F I N G

14. memory vs amnesia

15. In 2007, the “Shaw Report”
concluded that poor record
keeping across institutions
made investigations into
institutional child abuse much
more difficult.
Luckily, the National Library of
Scotland was able to supply
Civil Service Yearbooks to help
establish who had responsibility
for certain departments
historically.

16. The Library of Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
Transience: Evolution of the UK Web (2004-2014)
A.Jackson (2015), BL - Ten years of the UK web archive: what have we saved?

17. Traditional
vs new media

19. Preservation
risk averse vs risk tolerant

20. Agency for the
Legal Deposit
Libraries

21. 4 N O D E S
- British Library (London)
- British Library (Boston Spa, Yorkshire)
- National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh)
- National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth)
P U R P O S E O F N O D E S
- Not discoverable on public internet
- Secure storage
- Preservation (4 copies, plus 4 back-ups)
- Secure user access
Digital Legal Deposit Infrastructure
(Preservation)

22. Access
limit vs expand

23. 9 AC C E S S S I T E S ( R e a d i n g R o o m s )
- British Library (London)
- British Library (Boston Spa, Yorkshire)
- National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh)
- National Library of Scotland (Glasgow)
- National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth)
- National Library of Wales (Cardiff)
- Bodleian Libraries (Oxford)
- Cambridge University Library (Cambridge)
- Library of Trinity College Dublin (Dublin)
Digital Legal Deposit Infrastructure
(Access)
I M PAC T
- Access servers, e.g. 4 in Dublin
- Library terminals (no user-owned devices)
- Readers must travel

24. Reading… and
borrowing…

26. Thank You!
THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN
LEABHARLANN CHOLÁISTE NA TRÍONÓIDE, OLLSCOIL ÁTHA CLIATH