Electronic Legal Deposit (eLD)

At the end of October 2023, the British Library was subject to a major cyber-attack, which disrupted access to electronic Legal Deposit (eLD) content. A large-scale exercise was subsequently undertaken to check the integrity of the vast core eLD dataset, leading to the development of a new secure interface, or 'player', for accessing content collected prior to October 2023*.

We are delighted to announce that the new eLD player is now available on selected PCs on the first floor of the Eavan Boland Library. Access will be extended to PCs across all Library spaces in the coming weeks.

Due to a temporary technical issue, it is not currently possible to print from the eLD PCs. However, we anticipate that this functionality will be restored when access is provided to eLD content across all reading rooms. 

* The UK Web Archive does not feature in the new player and remains unavailable. It is hoped that access will be restored before the end of the calendar year.

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: