03-01-2014, 10:11 AM
Colin is correct. For clarity, here are a couple of brief extracts from the leaflet 'Legal deposit in the British Library':
Publishers and distributors in the UK and ROI have a legal obligation to send one copy of each of their publications to... the British Library... within one month of publication (Copyright Act 1911 etc)
and
The deposit regulations ... apply to the other five legal deposit libraries
Bodleian, Oxford
University library, Cambridge
National library of Scotloand
Library of Trinity college, Dublin
National library of Wales
That's six free copies, in all.
As for publishing - i.e. printing and distributing - without an ISBN, I imagine that for very small scale items, leaflets, booklets, there is obviously no need for ISBN and probably therefore the rules above do not apply, though I can't be sure of that: when does a book become a book? How widely do you want to sell?
Anyone can call themselves a publisher. A publisher is someone who either prints or causes to be printed, a book which he/she then puts on the open market, via book trade companies such as Neilsen and/or by touting the book round trade fairs, shops, wholesalers, anywhere to find buyers. An ISBN makes it possible for bookshops to locate the book in response to requests from customers.
Hope this clarifies things. There is actually no connection between the getting of an ISBN and the legal requirements of libraries.
Tony
Publishers and distributors in the UK and ROI have a legal obligation to send one copy of each of their publications to... the British Library... within one month of publication (Copyright Act 1911 etc)
and
The deposit regulations ... apply to the other five legal deposit libraries
Bodleian, Oxford
University library, Cambridge
National library of Scotloand
Library of Trinity college, Dublin
National library of Wales
That's six free copies, in all.
As for publishing - i.e. printing and distributing - without an ISBN, I imagine that for very small scale items, leaflets, booklets, there is obviously no need for ISBN and probably therefore the rules above do not apply, though I can't be sure of that: when does a book become a book? How widely do you want to sell?
Anyone can call themselves a publisher. A publisher is someone who either prints or causes to be printed, a book which he/she then puts on the open market, via book trade companies such as Neilsen and/or by touting the book round trade fairs, shops, wholesalers, anywhere to find buyers. An ISBN makes it possible for bookshops to locate the book in response to requests from customers.
Hope this clarifies things. There is actually no connection between the getting of an ISBN and the legal requirements of libraries.
Tony
