Electronic Publications as Legal Deposit

Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

One of the statutory roles of the National and University Library of Iceland is to collect all material published or intended for distribution in Iceland, make it accessible, and preserve it for the future. This responsibility is known as legal deposit and is governed by the Legal Deposit Act No. 20/2002. It entails that all books, reports, journals, newspapers, music, pamphlets, posters, and various other published materials must be submitted to the library.

In recent years, the nature of these materials has changed significantly, as publishing is no longer limited to physical formats such as print. Books, reports, journals, and newspapers are increasingly published electronically, which has impacted collection and cataloging practices.

The library has now implemented a new system, Lýsa to simplify workflows for acquisitions, cataloging and preservation of electronically published legal deposit materials. The use of the new system has significantly reduced time and effort needed to ensure that all objectives of the legal deposit law are met. E-books and digital audiobooks, which are often received in large batches no longer face processing bottlenecks, as they are now catalogued with the help of this solution.