The present document, prepared by a CDNL Working Group chaired by Brian Lang, Chief Executive of the British Library, suggests guidelines for national libraries both in developing and developed countries on how to prepare proposals for the legal deposit of electronic publications and on how to house and maintain such publications.

It complements the UNESCO ‘Guidelines for legal deposit legislation’, prepared in 1981 by Jean Lunn (PGI-81/WS/23). The main purposes of legal deposit are to create a comprehensive collection of national publications and to compile an authoritative national bibliographic record, in order to ensure their preservation and provide easy access to them. It is just as appropriate that these two essential functions should apply to the electronic publishing environment as they do to the traditional print on paper environment.