Abstract
The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 introduced for the first time in the United Kingdom a statutory basis for the collection by the legal deposit libraries of non-print, principally electronic, publications. Since the establishment of the Legal Deposit Advisory Panel in 2005, progress has been made in starting to turn this enabling act into reality, through a mixture of voluntary codes and statutory regulation. Work so far has concentrated on three categories of materials, offline, “free Web,” and electronic periodicals, and on the conceptual division of the remainder of the universe of electronic publications. Electronic deposit introduces several issues not present in print deposit and new dimensions to more familiar issues, including detailed involvement of the publisher in setting up the deposit process, “territoriality” (the place of publication), electronic user access, digital rights management, digital preservation, and data protection.
Keywords:
Notes
1. Initially attached to the Cabinet Office, BRE is now part of BERR, the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform.
2. After successful completion of its original objectives, UKWAC's primary role may now change towards becoming a forum for UK web archiving matters. Collection of UK websites and support of the existing archive both continue separately on a service basis underpinned by the British Library's new technical infrastructure. The archive is available at http://www.webarchive.org.uk
3. For example, some consumer agreements in the UK include a box to tick if the consumer does not wish their details to be passed on to another company, whereas the default in other countries is the other way around; the box must be ticked to signify that the consumer will permit it.