Getting started

What is National edeposit (NED)?

The NED service was developed by Australia’s national, state and territory libraries to provide for the deposit, management, storage, preservation, discovery and delivery of published electronic material within the remit of legal deposit legislation.

NED offers a single service for publishers to fulfill their national, state and territory legal deposit obligations for electronic publications, preserving these publications for future generations and providing access in accordance with the access conditions nominated by publishers.

Legal deposit is a statutory obligation which requires that any organisation, commercial or public, and any individual producing any type of documentation in multiple copies, be obliged to deposit one or more copies with a recognised national institution.
UNESCO Guidelines for legal deposit legislation, 2000

In Australia, legal deposit requires publishers to deposit publications with the National Library of Australia and the state or territory library where the publisher is based.

The following national, state and territory libraries are legal deposit libraries and are member libraries of NED.

  • National Library of Australia
  • State Library of Queensland
  • State Library Victoria
  • State Library of New South Wales
  • State Library of South Australia
  • State Library of Western Australia
  • Libraries Tasmania
  • Libraries ACT
  • Northern Territory Library

The following libraries are also legal deposit libraries. These libraries are not members of NED.

  • Parliamentary Library of New South Wales
  • University of Sydney Library
  • Parliamentary Library of Queensland
  • Parliamentary Library of South Australia

For specific information about legal deposit requirements in your state or territory, see what are my legal deposit obligations?.

Who is my member library?

The NED member libraries are Australian legal deposit libraries who are signatories to the NED Deed which governs the NED service. Each publisher who deposits using NED will be assigned to a member library. In general, your member library is the state or territory library in the state/territory in which you or your publisher organisation is based (this is also the state/territory you will select when you provide your publishers contact details during the deposit process).

For Commonwealth government departments and agencies, and publishers based overseas, your member library is the National Library of Australia.

Your member library is your primary point of contact for any support you need to use the NED service. Contact information for each member library is available at Contact Us.

Do I need to deposit using NED?

The laws supporting legal deposit of electronic materials vary across the Commonwealth, states and territories but, generally, if you publish an electronic publication, you can deposit a copy in the NED service to meet legal deposit requirements for the National Library and your state/territory library. Publishers are encouraged to deposit electronic materials within 1-2 months of publication to help build the national collection.

Once you have deposited an electronic publication to NED, your obligations for national legal deposit have been fulfilled. There may be other deposit obligations depending on the state or territory in which you are based as a publisher. If your state or territory legislation still requires a print copy, you will need to deposit this with your state or territory library. In some states there is also a requirement to deposit relevant materials with other deposit libraries. For specific information about legal deposit requirements in your state or territory, see what are my legal deposit obligations?.

For electronic publications by Australian authors, and about Australia, published outside Australia, please contact the National Library of Australia prior to making any deposits. Generally, overseas publications are out of scope for NED, however there are some exceptions.

Who is a 'publisher'?

Legal deposit covers Australian publishers of all types, including commercial publishers, government publishers, schools, societies, organisations, clubs, churches, associations and private individuals.

Australian authors that are also self-publishers, including those using overseas based online publishing platforms, are subject to legal deposit. Self-publishers should check their publishing contracts carefully to understand how files can be uploaded to NED and what access conditions are selected.

Australian authors who are not self-publishers, are encouraged to contact their publisher to complete the legal deposit process.

When is something considered published?

Legal deposit legislation only applies to materials that are published. Published refers to the act of making content, such as a book, article, report, music, film, or other works, available to the public, typically in a printed or digital format. This is often done through a publishing company, a media outlet, or via online platforms and websites. Once a work is published, it is generally accessible for viewing, reading, or purchasing by the public.

NED is not a publishing platform. If the content has not been made available to the public elsewhere it is out of scope for NED. To be in scope for NED the item needs to be created electronically and either:

  • freely available online
  • available for purchase online
  • available to the members/subscribers of an organisation
  • distributed to the public or members/subscribers of an organisation on physical media (e.g. USB drive)

To be considered a ‘publication’ and deposited using NED, your electronic items are required to have the following:

  • author/creator
  • title
  • year of publication
  • publisher
  • place of publication

Other information that is useful includes:

Please contact your member library if you are unsure about whether the item you are depositing is published.

What can be deposited using NED?

NED was developed for the deposit of electronic publications. An electronic publication is any book, journal, report, newsletter, map, music score, magazine, newsletter, newspaper, website or other item made generally available to the public in a digital format. They are often called “born-digital” publications as they were created in a digital format. An electronic publication may be available either for sale or for free.

The NED service accepts the following types of electronic publications:

  • Monographs (e.g. books, government publications)
  • Serials (e.g. journals, magazines, annual reports, newspapers)
  • Music scores
  • Maps
  • Ephemera (e.g. posters, pamphlets, fact sheets, leaflets, flyers)

What cannot be deposited using NED?

Material that is not published

Unpublished material is not in scope for NED but may be collected by member libraries as archival, personal digital or digital manuscripts and digital internal organisational documents such as minutes. Please contact your member library if you have unpublished material that you would like to offer to the library.

Scanned or digitised copies of print publications

These are out of scope for NED but may be accepted by your member library. Please contact your member library prior to depositing these materials.

Publications in formats currently unable to be deposited using NED

These formats include film, video, sound recordings, software applications including games and interactive publications that use non-supported formats. You may need to deposit publications in these formats separately from NED to meet your state or territory legal deposit requirements. Please contact your member library regarding deposit of these materials.

Websites

Websites are collected nationally through whole-of-domain harvests and the collaborative Pandora program. State and territory libraries may also collect websites within their jurisdictions.

If publishers deposit materials outside of the scope of NED, they will be notified by their member library that the content will not be accepted.

Do I need to create an account?

If you wish to make a one-off deposit to NED, you do not need to create an account. If you are likely to be depositing more than one publication or a serial publication (such as a newsletter, magazine, or annual report), or depositing regularly, you should create an account in NED. This will allow you to set up your default publisher details, and access agreement and your deposit history is kept in a single location under a single publisher name. You can override or set new defaults as needed. If you have an account, always remember to login prior to depositing any publications.

Further information about creating an account and options for organisations with multiple staff who deposit publications is available in Create an account.

What web browsers can I use to deposit?

You can use the latest two versions of Chrome, Firefox, or Edge to deposit your electronic publication. Safari is currently not compatible with the NED service.

Do I have to agree to any terms and conditions?

Publishers are asked to agree to NED’s Terms and Conditions when they first create an account, or for each deposit without creating an account. The NED service will also prompt you to accept any new terms and conditions as they are updated.