Identifying the future direction of legal deposit in the United Kingdom: the Digital Library Futures approach

This paper presents key findings from the AHRC-funded Digital Library Futures project. Its purpose is to provide a “user-centric” perspective on the potential future impact of the digital collections that are being created under electronic legal deposit regulations. The authors show that contemporary tensions between user behaviour and access protocols risk limiting the instrumental value of these digital library collections, which are not being used in the way that they could, due to access and legal restrictions.