Electronic Legal Deposit
Latest update
By Vicky Westmore
Last updated: 11 November 2024
British Library restores many of its services, with Electronic Legal Deposit content confirmed as secure – access platforms are now being worked on.
The British Library has been restoring a range of its core services following the cyber-attack of October 2023. A key priority is restoration of access to Electronic Legal Deposit content.
The core dataset of Electronic Legal Deposit content has been virus-scanned and confirmed as secure and intact.
We are now working on the digital platform needed to restore access to the content for library users.
For the time being, this won't include Electronic Legal Deposit content after October 2023, or the UK Web Archive.
We fully support the British Library's difficult journey back to recovery and their meticulous dedication to the security of the information and brand new secure systems. There are updates on the restoration of their other services in their latest update too.
Latest update
Sir Roly Keating, Chief Executive of the British Library, has said: "The task of checking the vast core dataset of Electronic Legal Deposit content (also known as Non-Print Legal Deposit) is now complete, but for all of the partners in the Legal Deposit Library network (the British Library, the National Library of Wales, the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Library and the Library of Trinity College Dublin) there is now a further stage of work to test and set up access to the new local systems needed to make it available in a way that is both secure and compliant with the very specific access restrictions required by statute.
"Timings for this may vary somewhat for each institution, and each of us will be communicating about this directly with our own user communities: please bear with us as we navigate through this final hurdle.
"As mentioned in my previous blog, this tranche of content will consist of e-journals and e-publications deposited prior to October 2023, and won’t for the time being include the UK Web Archive, for which a different solution is required."
Resources available now at Cambridge University Libraries
We will provide alternative ways to access electronic legal deposit content wherever possible, such as through inter-library loans and purchasing content.
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. Our print collection is ongoing and is still available.
Map content from electronic legal deposit is on a different system and can still be accessed from a PC terminal in the Map Room at the University Library.
All our other digital services, and our purchased electronic content, are still available too:
iDiscover (a single search point for print and online collections)
eResources and eJournals (articles, journals, databases and books online)
Cambridge Digital Library (digitised materials, collections and research outputs)
Apollo (research outputs from the University of Cambridge)
ArchiveSearch (search for archives and primary sources held in Cambridge)
These services are available onsite and offsite, with your username and password where needed. All University of Cambridge students and staff are automatically members of the Library: simply use your usual Cambridge login for all digital services and your Cambridge ID card to visit the Library.
Everyone is welcome to join the Library: find out more and register.
Cambridge Digital Library is accessible to everyone, everywhere, without a login.
Tell us what you need
We understand people need access to electronic legal deposit content. We will do whatever we can to get you the content you need from other sources. Ask in person at the University Library on West Road, your faculty or department library, or email library@lib.cam.ac.uk.
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. 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.
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, causing substantial damage and many systems are still unavailable. The information itself is safe, but has had to be rigourously tested for security, and new systems to access it are being built.
The legal deposit libraries are: the National Library of Wales, the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Libraries and the library of Trinity College Dublin. We are all working with the British Library and together to restore access.
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