Helping preserve the national record

Legal deposit is a statutory requirement established through both national and state legislation. It provides for the collection, preservation and access to works published in Australia or at the state level.

As such, legal deposit plays a significant role in the preservation of the national record.

Print and electronic publications are both encompassed by legal deposit requirements and the range of publication is broad. For example, books, journals, reports, newsletters, maps, scores and websites fall within the scope of legal deposit.

Legal deposit obligations apply to works published by Macquarie University. However, works published by commercial publishers should be deposited by the publisher.

Digital publications

Unlike print publications, you are not legally bound to deposit copies of all relevant digital publications unless they are requested by a legal deposit library. Digital publications can be sent to the National eDeposit (NED) portal established by the National Library.

The State Library of NSW will also harvest from this portal. At this time, electronic files can be emailed directly to the University of Sydney Library and the NSW Parliamentary Library.

Print publications

One copy of your publication must be lodged with the designated legal deposit library, the National Library of Australia (NLA). For more information, see how to deposit on the NLA website.

In addition to the copy you lodge with the National Library, single copies of publications published in NSW should also be sent to the three NSW legal deposit libraries:

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