The Legal Deposit Libraries Bill, designed to ensure that digital materials are archived at UK's legal deposit libraries, is to go to the House of Lords, then back to the House of Commons for third reading on its way to enactment as a law. Passage is expected in May 2003. Existing law provides for depositing a copy of all printed UK publications in the legal deposit libraries (one of these is the British Library). Based on a voluntary agreement, materials such as CD-ROMs and microfilm/micro-fiche have also been deposited. But the agreement did not include online publications and Web sites. The Legal Deposit Libraries Bill is intended to cover these digital materials.
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