Legal Deposit

All Tasmanian publishers, including self-publishers, are required to give a copy of each of their publications to Libraries Tasmania, and to the National Library of Australia.

This is referred to as ‘Legal Deposit’. A publication can include:

books and eBooks
newspapers and magazines
maps and plans
sheet music
sound or video recordings
websites
anything else which reproduces words, sounds or images.

An item is published if copies of it are sold or otherwise distributed to the public.

The benefits of Legal Deposit

The Libraries Act 1984 (Tas) requires that all publishers in Tasmania give a copy of their publications to the State Library and Archives of Tasmania.

We keep these Legal Deposit copies permanently, so future generations have access to them. We buy additional copies for our reference and lending collections as required.

Depositing publications

The copy you give us must be the best copy published. For example, if a book is published in both hard cover and paperback, a copy of the hard cover version needs to be deposited.

If a work is published in both electronic and physical form, you only need to deposit the electronic version unless the physical version is different in layout or content.

Physical material

You can deliver a copy of your physical publication to any of our libraries, or send it to:

Legal Deposit Officer
Libraries Tasmania
91 Murray Street
HOBART, TASMANIA 7000

Please include a completed Legal Deposit lodgement form (PDF 54KB) so that we can register your deposit.

Electronic material

Please deposit electronic publications through the National edeposit (NED) portal.

Websites cannot be deposited in NED at this stage. Libraries Tasmania routinely capture and maintain copies of many Tasmanian websites so that future generations can access this cultural information. If you are planning major changes to your website, please contact us to arrange a capture of the existing site before you make the changes.