What is National edeposit (NED)?
National edeposit (NED) is an innovative and collaborative service responding to the major challenge of capturing and preserving the digital documentary history of Australia, for the benefit of all Australians. The NED service provides for the deposit, management, storage, preservation, discovery and delivery of published electronic material across Australia.
The NED members are the National Library of Australia, Libraries ACT, Libraries Tasmania, Library & Archives NT, State Library of New South Wales, State Library of Queensland, State Library of South Australia, State Library Victoria and the State Library of Western Australia.
Legal deposit legislation mandates NED member libraries to collect all the publications of individual jurisdictions. For many years these libraries have built collections of print publications that provide the documentary history of 19th and 20th century Australia, but the rapid rise of digital publishing over the last 20 years has enabled NED member libraries to reimagine the traditional legal deposit model.
Digital technologies have provided opportunities to facilitate legal deposit by improving deposit processes, and streamlining the complex tasks of cataloguing, indexing and recording, managing and providing access to deposited publications.
NED member libraries have developed an innovative service that provides benefits to publishers, libraries and users.
Benefits and efficiencies for publishers include:
- a single service – publishers can generally deposit once and fulfil their state/territory library and National Library electronic legal deposit responsibilities.
- digital preservation and long‐term access to publications collected by all member libraries.
- better and faster access to legal deposit publications.
- more publications openly available.
The collaborative approach that drove the development and implementation of NED has continued, with ongoing enhancements to ensure that the service meets the evolving needs of publishers, library users, and NED member libraries. This work is guided by consultation with key stakeholders and the NED Strategic Plan 2023-2026. The plan includes initiatives to increase the diversity of publications in the collection, respond to changing technology and work more closely with Australia’s vibrant publishing industry.