The National Library of Australia has created a new factsheet and a video to help explain Legal deposit.
Legal deposit is a law that requires authors to provide a copy of any published work to the National Library. This includes books as well as graphic novels, comics, newspapers and magazines, maps, sheet music and some other publications.
With books, you don’t need to send a printed copy. The National Library actually prefers digital copies sent through NED – National E-Deposit. So it’s quick, easy and free.
There’s no need to panic if you haven’t done this yet – the National Library assures us that it has no legal deposit police, and their preference is to “ask nicely”.
We’ve also put up a permanent page about Legal deposit in our Resources section.