RE: Legal Deposit Libraries Act

["David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>]

Lots of interesting replies on this.  Let me pick up a couple of 
points:

Cliif Morgan wrote..

>The Bodleian is one of the libraries involved in the Google 
>Print for Libraries project, and I think that Nigel Newton is 
>making the point that legal deposit copies have limitations on 
>their use and accessibility. Not quite a dark archive since 
>access is allowed, but only within legal deposit library reading 
>rooms - may be thought of as a crepuscular archive ...

However, as has been pointed out all of the titles being 
digitised in Oxford are out of copyright - does falling out of 
copyright mean that the limitations on use and accessibility of 
legal deposit titles are lifted?  Or do these limitations remain?

(It should also be noted that probably only about half of the 
Oxford nineteenth century collection comes from legal deposit - 
almost half are non-English language titles published outside of 
the UK and there will be significant English language titles that 
were not published in the UK. Despite my e-mail address I'm 
afraid I don't know the details!)

A few people have commented on the historical anomaly of Trinity 
College, Dublin being a UK copyright library.  Apparently it is 
at least a reciprocal anomaly and all books published in the 
Republic must be deposited in the five UK libraries (as well as 
Trinity).

Finally, I wonder if I was the only person who, after reading 
Newton's ill-informed and (in my view) wrong-headed piece, felt a 
greater desire to boycott Bloomsbury than Google?

David

David C Prosser PhD
Director
SPARC Europe