in Publishing
Legal deposit, and why your book goes to the British Library
Publishing in the UK comes with a legal duty that many new publishers do not know about. It is simple to meet and it puts your book in the national record.
If you publish a book in the UK, the law requires you to send a copy to the British Library. This is legal deposit, and it applies to every publisher, from the largest houses to someone issuing a single title under their own name.
The duty is straightforward. It is also easy to overlook, which is why it is worth setting out clearly.
What the law requires
Under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, the publisher of a print publication in the UK must deposit one copy with the British Library within one month of publication. The copy is provided free of charge. The obligation falls on the publisher, which for a self-published book means the author acting as publisher.
Five other libraries also have legal deposit rights: the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales and the Library of Trinity College Dublin. They do not receive copies automatically. They may request one, and if they do, the publisher is required to supply it. Requests to publishers are usually coordinated on their behalf by a central agency.
Since 2013, regulations have extended legal deposit to material published digitally, including ebooks. The arrangements for non-print works differ from those for print, and deposit can be made electronically. If you publish in both print and digital form, it is worth checking the current guidance on how each should be handled.
Why it exists
Legal deposit is how the UK keeps a complete record of what it publishes. The copies are preserved for the long term and made available to readers in the libraries' reading rooms, so that someone researching a subject decades from now can find what was published about it, not only what happened to survive in private hands.
For the publisher, there are practical benefits too. A deposited book is catalogued, and its record joins the national bibliographic data used by libraries across the country. That makes the book more discoverable to librarians and researchers than it would otherwise be.
What it does not do
Legal deposit does not register or protect copyright. Copyright in the UK arises automatically and does not depend on deposit. Nor does deposit mean the British Library will stock the book for lending in the ordinary sense, promote it or review it. It is an archive, not a shop or a publicity channel.
It also does not replace other steps. A deposited book still needs an ISBN and properly registered metadata if it is to be found and ordered through the trade.
Doing it properly
The practical steps are few. Send a copy of the book as published, not a proof, to the British Library's legal deposit address within one month of the publication date. Include a note identifying the publisher and the title. Keep a record that you have done so.
If you publish more than one format in print, such as a hardback and a paperback, each is a separate publication for this purpose. If a later edition contains changes, that is a new publication too. Straight reprints of an unchanged edition do not need to be deposited again.
Watch for requests from the other legal deposit libraries in the months after publication, and meet them promptly.
It is a small obligation, and meeting it means the book is kept in the national record for as long as that record lasts.