Restoring access to Electronic Legal Deposit: latest update

By Vicky Westmore
Last updated: 30 August 2024

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

Every effort is being made to restore access to the Electronic Legal Deposit during the first term of the new academic year.

Once the British Library makes the data and their new system available to us, our teams will adapt our systems to interface with the new player and create a new portal so users can search and access the information. Everything must be and will be absolutely secure.

We know the Electronic Legal Deposit is needed and we’ll release functionality in stages to give access as quickly and safely as possible. We estimate the first access will be 4-6 weeks after the British Library’s new system is complete and ready for us to use.

Their latest update, released on 30 August 2024, estimates their new system will be ready around the end of September.

Please note the British Library has said they won’t be able to provide access in their own reading rooms during this phase (in case anyone was thinking of travelling to access it sooner, this won’t be possible). Partner libraries, including Cambridge University Libraries, will be providing access first.

We will continue to keep you updated at every stage.

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, following the cyber attack they suffered last year. 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: "At around the same time [around 30 September] we aim to have completed the complex process of restoring the core dataset of Non-Print Legal Deposit (NPLD) content. Once this is complete, our partner libraries in the Legal Deposit network (the National Library of Wales, the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Libraries, Cambridge University Library and the library of Trinity College Dublin) will each separately communicate with their users a timeline for restoring access to this content in their own reading rooms. Please note that this may be slightly different for each institution.

"As I mentioned last month, this tranche of restored NPLD 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 technical solution is required. As previously mentioned, we have prioritised the provision of NPLD access in our partner libraries: for technical reasons access within our own Reading Rooms will take a little longer."

Read the full update

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 applicable. 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.