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What is Legal Deposit

Legal deposit is a statutory provision that requires publishers to lodge copies of their publications with designated libraries. Many of the great libraries of the world, including the Library of Congress and the British Library, are repositories for legal deposit publications.

In South Australia, Section 35 of the Libraries Act 1982, requires publishers to deposit a copy of all their publications, including every issue of a periodical or newspaper, free of charge to the State Library. The library also has the authority to claim items from interstate and overseas publishers, whose publications have particular relevance to South Australia.

Publishers also have deposit obligations to the South Australian Parliament Research Library and to the National Library of Australia.

Electronic publications 

Deposit online publications using the National edeposit (NED) service. This includes online books, journals, magazines, newsletters, annual reports, maps and music scores.

Deposits through NED meet the legal deposit requirements of both the State Library of South Australia and the National Library of Australia.
 
The Libraries Board of South Australia has issued an Agreement to advise publishers that they may deposit electronically:

how to Deposit publications

Electronic publications

Deposit online publications using the National edeposit (NED) service. This includes online books, journals, magazines, newsletters, annual reports, maps and music scores.

Deposits through NED meet the legal deposit requirements of both the State Library of South Australia and the National Library of Australia.

If you have questions about electronic legal deposit, please contact us.

Printed Publications

Material published in a hardcopy format, and not published electronically, can be posted to the address below. Please send one copy of each item.

Legal Deposit - Published Collections
State Library of SA
GPO Box 419
Adelaide SA 5001

In addition, please fill out the Published Collections Offer form and indicate that the material has been posted. 

Audio- visual 

Audio-visual publications (sound recordings, films) cannot be deposited through NED and should be posted to the address below. Please send one copy of each item.

Legal Deposit - Published Collections
State Library of SA
GPO Box 419
Adelaide SA 5001

In addition, please fill out the Published Collections Offer form and indicate that the material has been posted. 

South Australian Public Libraries

The State Library does not acquire books or any material for South Australian Public libraries. Authors and publishers should consult the information available from Libraries SA. 

Contact Us

Published collections

Legal Deposit - Published Collections
State Library of SA
GPO Box 419
Adelaide SA 5001
Phone: +61 8 7424 6300
Email: SLSA.Publishedcd@sa.gov.au

Legal deposit FAQs

Who are publishers?

'Publishers’ include commercial publishers, government publishers, schools, societies, organisations, clubs, churches, associations and private individuals. Legal deposit does not apply to authors, retail outlets or printers if they are not also the publisher.

What are publications?

'Publications' are those deemed to be available to the general public, or distributed to an audience such as a club membership, either by sale or for free.
Legal deposit applies to printed items such as books, magazines and newspapers and works in any other format including film and video, audio CDs, CD-ROMs, websites and any electronic material.

How does the State Library archive websites? 

Once permission is obtained, the State Library employs harvesting software that copies material online from a specified seed URL and publishes it to the PANDORA archive. In most cases, the publisher's assistance is not required. 

How do I find out about legal deposit titles?

You can see what's new in our collection and subscribe to the South Australiana resources RSS feed, which lists all the South Australian material added in the last fortnight including legal deposit, donations, and purchased items.

Image caption: Infocuz Technologies, La tecnologia de big data revolucionara la seguridad de la informacion, Flickr Creative Commons, viewed 25/3/2014.