Every UK publisher has to send copies of every print run to the legal deposit libraries. Most do it manually — printing extras, stacking parcels, queuing at Royal Mail, filing the ALDL form, hoping nothing slips through. Set it up once with us and never think about it again.
Statutory under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. Every print run, every title, every time. The libraries don't accept "we forgot" as an answer — and they can claim up to twelve months after publication.
Pull six copies from your stock, label them, package them, queue at the post office, file the ALDL request form. Multiply by every title you publish.
ISBN list, dates posted, Royal Mail receipts, ALDL reference numbers, claim letters from the five university libraries — all somewhere in your inbox or on your desk. Auditors and accountants ask for it.
The Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries actively monitors UK ISBN registrations. If you publish a title and forget to send copies, expect a claim letter — and the obligation doesn't go away. The hassle of dealing with that is worse than the postage.
No new system to learn. The auto-fulfilment lives inside the Hub you already use to upload files and place reprints. Switch it on once and it runs alongside every print job you put through us.
Tick the legal deposit toggle in your Hub settings — applies to every print run from then on. Or enable it per-order if you'd rather decide each time.
When your job goes through production, we add six extra copies in the same run, on the same stock, bound the same way. They print alongside yours — no separate batch, no setup time.
One copy goes Royal Mail Tracked to the British Library at Boston Spa. The five Agency libraries receive theirs as claims come in. We auto-complete and submit the ALDL request form on your behalf.
Per-title fulfilment record: date posted, tracking refs, ALDL form reference, claim status per library. Each title gets a "Legal deposit complete" badge once all claimed copies are dispatched.
Once the toggle is on, you don't touch this again. Every item below runs automatically, every print run.
Same stock, same bind, same finish as your main run. Paper and binding cost only — no service margin.
To the British Library at Boston Spa, and to each Agency library on claim. Tracking numbers retained against your title.
We pre-fill the ALDL form from your title metadata (ISBN, title, contributors, format, price) and submit on your behalf within a month of publication.
Hub timeline showing date posted, tracking refs, library-by-library status, ALDL form reference. Exportable PDF receipt per title.
When Bodleian, Cambridge, Trinity, NLS or NLW claim a copy, we receive the request and dispatch it. You never see the email.
Forgotten an older title? If we hold the print files in your Imprint vault, we'll print and dispatch the missing copies on demand.
Established by statute. Their entitlement covers every print and electronic publication issued in the UK and Republic of Ireland — yours included, whether you're publishing one title or fifty a year.
Boston Spa, West Yorkshire
● Automatic — every print runEdinburgh
○ Claim on requestAberystwyth
○ Claim on requestOxford
○ Claim on requestCambridge
○ Claim on requestDublin
○ Claim on requestHow the split works: The British Library receives a copy of every title automatically, posted to its Boston Spa preservation site. The five other libraries — collectively the Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries (ALDL) — claim copies on demand, usually within months of publication. We post BL on every run; we handle every ALDL claim that lands.
Indicative figures for a typical 240-page paperback. Real numbers live against your spec in the Hub before you commit. No setup fees, no per-title charges, no annual subscription.
Yes. UK legal deposit is statutory under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. Any publisher of a print publication issued in the UK or Republic of Ireland must deposit a copy at the British Library within one month of publication. The five Agency libraries (Scotland, Wales, Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin) can claim a copy on top, on request. There's no exemption for small publishers, self-publishers, or short runs.
If we hold your print files in the Imprint file vault, we'll print and dispatch the missing copies on demand — whether the title's a year old or ten. Backfill is the same flat marginal cost as a new title. If the files aren't with us yet, get them uploaded and we'll handle it from there.
Yes. The Act doesn't distinguish between a major publisher and a single-title self-publisher. If you've registered an ISBN and printed any copies, the deposit obligation applies. Auto-fulfilment works the same way for one title or fifty — no minimum, no different pricing.
The British Library receives a copy of every UK book automatically — that's the always-on requirement. The five Agency libraries (NLS, NLW, Bodleian, Cambridge, Trinity Dublin) hold a separate entitlement to claim a copy on demand. In practice, around half of titles are claimed by all five. So six is the maximum — we print all six up front, post the BL copy immediately, and dispatch the others as the claims come in. Unclaimed copies stay with us; we don't bill you for postage that didn't happen.
No. The libraries accept whichever format you've published in. We deposit copies in the same binding as your main print run. If you publish a title in both paperback and hardback, both editions need their own deposit copies — they have different ISBNs and count as separate titles for legal deposit purposes.
Non-print legal deposit (ebooks, websites, journals) is governed separately by the 2013 regulations and runs through the British Library's electronic deposit system. We don't currently handle non-print deposit — it's on our roadmap but not part of this service. Print is what we cover.
Once the service is live (Q2 2026), every title in your Hub gets a downloadable PDF receipt showing dispatch dates, tracking numbers, ALDL reference, and claim status per library. Useful for accountants, auditors, and the inevitable "did we send a copy of [title] to the Bodleian?" three years from now. Email us for a draft template.
Auto-fulfilment ships in Q2 2026. Join the waiting list and we'll switch you on the day it's live — no migration, no extra setup, no new tools to learn.
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