(21 May 2018) National edeposit (NED) is an exciting collaboration between Australia’s NSLA member libraries, responding to the major challenge of capturing and preserving the digital documentary history of Australia for the future.
Legal deposit legislation mandates national, state and territory libraries to collect the entire publications of individual jurisdictions. For many years NSLA libraries have built collections of print publications that provide the documentary history of 19th and 20th century Australia, but the arrival of digital media and the internet late last century has been and remains the great disrupter. For libraries, it means that publications are no longer just print; print formats – books, journals, newspapers, magazines, maps, sheet music – are now available in digital, and new digital-only formats proliferate, including websites, social media, and blogs.
NED will enable the deposit, archiving, management, discovery and delivery of published electronic material across Australia. It will provide publishers and users with a number of benefits and efficiencies, including:
- a single service – publishers can deposit once and fulfil their state/territory library and National Library digital legal deposit responsibilities
- digital preservation and long‐term access to publications collected by all NSLA libraries
- better and faster access to legal deposit publications
- more publications openly available.
Currently in its final development phase, NED will launch in early 2019 at ned.gov.au
The announcement is here.
