Using Legal Deposit Material

What is available?

Anyone who has a National Library of Wales reader’s ticket has access on our premises to millions of UK and Irish publications.

The National Library of Wales receives this material because of (legal deposit) legislation. This means not only printed items, but also electronic material and archived UK domain websites.

As a legal deposit library, the National Library of Wales has the right to claim a copy of everything published in the UK and Ireland under the terms of the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 (legislation.gov.uk). Since 2013, this right has been extended by the Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print) Regulations 2013 to allow us to collect electronic publications and to harvest content from the worldwide web.

Along with printed material such as books, newspapers and journals, we are also able to collect a mixture of electronic content. This includes e-books and journal articles, as well as archived websites from the UK domain web archive.

Social media content, such as from Twitter and Facebook, is part of the 2013 regulations, and therefore legal deposit libraries can collect this content.

Material not included by the 2013 regulations are:

• Private messages in Twitter and Facebook
• The content of pure video streaming sites, such as YouTube

Access to Legal Deposit material

Access is controlled by legislation. Members of the National Library of Wales have access to legal deposit material on our premises. You cannot borrow printed material or access the electronic material via your own laptop on Library premises or from home.

Printed and electronic material is available in our reading room. You can also consult electronic legal deposit material at Cardiff University Library.

You can search for legal deposit material via the Library catalogue.

There is no limit to the number of electronic items that you can access in a day.

Restrictions

Only one person at a time can view an electronic item, and there is no time limit set (within a day) for how long you can consult an item. Electronic publications are not made available until at least seven days after they have been deposited with the Library.

Archived websites

Archived websites are available via the UK Web Archive portal on the National Library’s premises via our public access computers. Where a website owner has granted permission, access will also be available on your own laptop or from your home, work or place of study.

Sites are archived on an annual basis, with access available around 12 months after harvesting.

Copying Legal Deposit material

The copying of printed material is allowed within the bounds of copyright legislation. You can also print from electronic material.

Anyone viewing an electronic item needs to accept the terms and conditions governing use of the material, which includes copyright regulations in relation to printing. Printing is monitored to ensure there are no contraventions of the copyright regulations.

You can get further advice from Reading Room staff on copying and printing limits.

Downloading and photographing

Downloading or the use of cameras (including camera phones) to make copies from electronic legal deposit material are not allowed by Legal deposit regulations.

Further advice

For further advice, you may consult with Reading Room staff.