Introducing Electronic Legal Deposit in the UK: A Homeric Tale

Abstract

One of the greatest of Lynne Brindley's achievements during her twelve years in charge of the British Library was to remain steadfastly true to the Library's aim, shared with the other UK copyright libraries, of extending the law of legal deposit to encompass publications in digital form. This article casts a retrospective and sometimes rueful eye on the whole process of achieving this legislation, and another eye to the future, in an attempt to identify some of the critical factors that underlie electronic legal deposit in Britain and that will influence its further development.