Electronic Legal Deposit (eLD)

Update  June 11th, 2024: The disruption of the Library’s access to publications normally available via UK Electronic Legal Deposit is ongoing, following the cyberattack on the British Library at the end of October 2023.

The British Library continues to work with the Library of Trinity College Dublin and the four other UK legal deposit libraries to restore access to UK electronic legal deposit materials that were deposited prior to the cyber-attack and we now expect this to be available for the new academic year (2024-25). The Library will update you on specific dates nearer the time. For the latest up-to-date information on the steps towards recovery, see the British Library’s blog. 

Legal Deposit started in 1662 and has helped the Library to amass a vast collection of books, journals and other printed items which are of great value to researchers.  In April 2013, legislation came into force which extended legal deposit to electronic publications.  The Library now receives the bulk of material electronically, but continues to receive some materials in print format.  Of course, the Library also has many subscriptions to eJournals and ebooks and so you will find many electronic items in our collections besides those that we receive under electronic Legal Deposit.

It's important to note that eLD content is not the same as commercially available digital material.  Access is subject to a number of important restrictions:

• UK eLD materials can only be viewed on Library premises using Library devices (e.g. PCs and laptops).
• Only one person at a time can view an item. There is no time limit set (within a day) for how long an item can be consulted.  However, you will be timed out after 30 minutes of inactivity.  Once an item has been closed down (or has timed out) it will become available to another reader.
• Digital copying is not permitted under current legislation. You cannot copy and paste, take a screenshot, download or scan material.

UK eLD materials fall into two broad categories: e-books and e-journals. Each category can be identified in Stella Search as follows:

• In the case of e-books, by the phrase: Available on Library reading room PCs only. Click here for access

• In the case of e-journals, by the appearance of a button stating: UK eLD (Library PCs only)

To open an eLD item, you will need to accept terms and conditions, as outlined in the screenshot below:

As UK legislation permits only one person to view an eLD item at any one time, you will see the following message if you attempt to open an eLD item that is already in use by another reader: