Legal deposit

Does legal deposit apply to electronic publications?

Yes. These include Australian electronic books, journals, sheet music, maps, magazines, newsletters, newspapers and websites that are made available to the public for sale or for free.

What counts as Australian?

All works published in Australia, including works published by Australians on websites and hosted on overseas self-publishing platforms.

Am I required to deposit my publication?

See how to deposit

What is an offline publication?

Offline refers to both hard-copy print (including print on demand), and electronic publications published on a hard-drive, USB flash-drive, CD, DVD, or any other physical electronic media.

What is an online publication?

Online refers to websites, ebooks, electronic journals, magazines, newsletters, sheet music, maps, newspapers and websites.

When do I need to deposit?

Deliver offline publications to the National Library of Australia within one month of publication.

Deliver online publications within one month of receiving a request from us.

What should I deposit if my work is published both online and offline?

Deposit the offline publication unless you have received a request from us for the online. If you would prefer to deposit the online copy, please contact us.

If I haven’t received a request, can I still deposit my online publication?

Yes! Please contact us.

How will my publication be made available?

You will select the level of public access to your electronic publication when you deposit it with the Library. This can be onsite only access at the National Library in Canberra, or a broader level of access.

For onsite only access to electronic publications, copying or distribution will be prevented. To find out more about levels of access see access to electronic publications.

When will my publication be accessible?

Publications will take 1-2 months to be catalogued and processed. You will be able to see the catalogue record for the work in the National Library’s catalogue and Trove, the national discovery service. Our catalogue records have high visibility in search engine results. They are also distributed to Worldcat, an international bibliographic database.

Do I need an ISBN, ISSN or ISMN to deposit?

No. These International Standard Numbers for books (ISBN), serials (ISSN), and music (ISMN) have benefits in the retail trade. See ISBNISSN or ISMN for further information.

Do I need to apply for a CiP entry?

Cataloguing-in-Publication (CiP) is a free, optional service offered to publishers by the National Library of Australia to provide a catalogue record for books and sheet music which have not yet been published. When the CiP entry is created it gets distributed to book suppliers and libraries who may pre-order your publication. See Cataloguing-in-Publication.

Are government publications subject to legal deposit?

Australian Government departments and agencies are required to provide copies of their publications with the National Library of Australia under the Library Deposit Scheme (LDS). The Library Deposit and Free Issues Scheme administered by the Digital Transformation Office also enables State and Local Government publications to be collected and distributed.

Government websites will be harvested, where possible, in accordance with Whole of Government arrangements (AGIMO Circular 2012/01). Online Government publications can also be deposited through the edeposit service

edeposit service

What file format should I deposit?

The edeposit service accepts epub, PDF or mobi files for books, journals, magazines, newsletters and music scores. If you publish in more than one of these, our preference is epub. The service accepts PDF, GeoPDF, TIFF, or GeoTIFF files for maps. We do not accept Word documents. If you publish in a different format, please contact us and we will be happy to discuss options with you.

What file format should I use for cover images?

You can upload JPG, JPEG, TIF or TIFF cover images with an RGB colour profile. Files must be under 250 MB.

 While the edeposit system will accept images with a CMYK colour profile, we cannot currently display them online. You can edit the colour profile of your cover images using image processing software such as Photoshop. 

Can I email my publication to you?

No. Please use the edeposit service to deposit your online publication. This is the best way for the correct information to be provided, and ensures that the work is brought safely into the collection.

What is Digital Rights Management (DRM)?

Digital Rights Management (or DRM) refers to any technical means used to restrict access to the publication. Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) are often used to do this, such as encryption of files to proprietary locks or watermarks. For us to preserve digital collections over the long term, we require that files are deposited without any of these measures in place.

The edeposit service will not accept my file, what do I do?

If the edeposit service detects any DRM protections, viruses or if your file is larger than 100 MB, you will not be able to complete your deposit. You may need to request a DRM-free file from your publishing platform or run a virus check on the file. Contact us if you are unsure.

I need to deposit regularly, is there anything I can do to speed up the process?

Yes! Create an account in the edeposit service and set up your default publisher details and access agreement. This information will then be prefilled in the form to save you time. You can override or set new defaults as needed.

Can I check what I have deposited?

Yes. You can create an account in the edeposit service to see a list of your previous deposits.

We have several members of staff who deposit our publications. What is the best way to manage this?

Create a generic user account for your publishing company. If possible, use a shared email account. You can update the contact name as often as needed.

I have a large quantity of front or backlist online publications. Is there another way to deposit?

We are currently developing a batch deposit process. We would be very interested in hearing from you if you have this need. Please contact us.

Will I receive an acknowledgement when I deposit my publication?

Yes, you will receive an email when you successfully deposit with the edeposit service When your publication has been processed, you will be able to see it in our catalogue.

Website publishers

I received a notification from the Library’s web crawler, what do I need to do?

Nothing! You have already met your legal deposit requirements. If there are any difficulties harvesting your public website, you may be contacted by us again. Further information can be found on the notice to publisher of online material.

How will my website be made available?

Search for Australian archived websites in Trove’s Archived websites or the Pandora web archive.

Please contact us if you wish to have your legal deposit archived website or web publication made available.
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