In the mangrove society : a collaborative Legal Deposit management hypothesis for the preservation of and permanent access to the national cultural heritage

Legal deposit, regulated by Law no. 106 of 15 April 2004 and Presidential Decree no. 252 of 3 May 2006, requires Italian publishers to deposit a copy of the published material with several libraries. Legal deposit involves long-term preservation and access to information on various media, not least computer networks. While traditional media are well regulated, digital legal deposit rules are barely sketched out. The National Central Library of Florence (BNCF), with the National Central Library of Rome (BNCR) and the Marciana National Library of Venice, created Magazzini digitali: a digital legal deposit project that allows harvesting of doctoral theses and e-journals produced by research institutions, in addition to ebooks and commercial journals.

Thanks to a collaboration with Horizons and Giunti, BNCR has started an experimental deposit of ebooks through MLOL. While awaiting the regulation on digital legal deposit, it is urgent to reopen the debate on this issue and make more effective the collaboration between institutions involved in the management of the digital library heritage, so as to establish a coordination structure that will define the scientific guidelines and the appropriate technological and service choices. [Publisher's text].