Access to Electronic Legal Deposit Restored
Readers across Cambridge University Libraries have access to the Electronic Legal Deposit collections of e-books and e-journals restored.
To find the nearest terminal where you can access the collections, please see the list of libraries with Electronic Legal Deposit access here. Details on the content available, and the functionality of the new eLD Player, are provided in this user guide.
As a UK Legal Deposit Library, Cambridge University Library along with the five other legal deposit libraries (the British Library, Library of Trinity College Dublin, the Bodleian Libraries, National Library of Scotland, and the National Library of Wales) share the infrastructure for UK Electronic Legal Deposit publications.
At the end of October 2023, the British Library was subject to a major cyber-attack which disrupted access to UK Electronic Legal Deposit publications, including at Cambridge. A full scan of the Electronic Legal Deposit collections of e-books and e-journal articles has confirmed that they are intact and free of any malware that might have been left by the attackers.
The most recent stage, which has now been completed, was to build a platform on which to access this content. The new interface is an interim solution with limited functionality, but is both secure and compliant with the very specific access restrictions required by UK statute.
For the time-being, access will only be possible for the Electronic Legal Deposit collections of e-books and e-journals collected prior to October 2023. (Access to other e-books and e-journals outside of Electronic Legal Deposit remain available as before).
The UK Web Archive will not be available at the current time.
Map content continues to be available in the Map Room at the University Library.
More details on the road-map for development of the new eLD Player will be provided soon. We welcome your feedback to help its development. Contact us at: eld@lib.cam.ac.uk
Other digital resources available at Cambridge University Libraries
iDiscover
A single search point for all our collections and resources, print and online.
e-books
Access to over 1.75 million ebooks (and counting).
e-journals
Find research articles by journal title or browse by subject.
Databases
Search over 1,500 databases, spanning subjects A-Z.
Newspapers
Access to British and international newspapers, including current and archive issues.
Cambridge Digital Library
Special collections digitised for everyone to view online.
Apollo
Research outputs from the University, including theses and research data.
ArchiveSearch
Search for archives and primary sources held in the city of Cambridge.
These services are available with your username and password where needed.
Cambridge Digital Library is accessible to everyone, everywhere, without a login.
What is Electronic Legal Deposit?
Books, magazines, scholarly journals, newspapers, maps, websites and more, that originate in the UK and Ireland, are preserved in their millions under print and electronic legal deposit.
Legal deposit libraries have the right to request a copy of every publication in the UK and Ireland. Cambridge University Library has been collecting in print since 1710.
Ten years ago, the six legal deposit libraries of the UK and Ireland gained the right to receive a copy of every UK electronic publication, on the same basis as they have received print publications for several centuries.
Electronic Legal Deposit also includes government and official publications from the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, publications from charities and campaigning organisations, sheet music, academic journals, local histories, and outputs from private presses through to the largest publishers in the UK.
Even annual snapshots of Ordnance Survey large-scale mapping of Britain, and regular snapshots of UK websites are collected – often the only surviving copy of millions of pages of web content, as information rapidly changes online.
The collaborative collecting happens on an incredible scale.
The legal deposit libraries are: the British Library, the National Library of Wales, the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Libraries and the Library of Trinity College Dublin.
What happened to it?
Access to the Electronic Legal Deposit is provided by the British Library through terminals on site in legal deposit libraries. The British Library was the target of a cyber attack in October 2023. The information had to be rigourously tested for security, and new systems built to access it. This work is ongoing but an interim solution has restored access to Electronic Legal Deposit e-books and e-journals.
Library membership
All University of Cambridge students and staff are members of Cambridge University Library: simply use your usual Cambridge login for all digital services and your blue Cambridge ID card to visit the Library.
Everyone is welcome to join the University Library: find out more and register.
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