Information
The current Italian law on legal deposit of documents of cultural interest is the law no. 106, issued the 15 April of 2004. Its aim is to promote collective fruition and preservation of memory through the deposit, in a specific public institute, of what has been published or diffused in Italy.
The person in charge of the legal deposit is the publisher or in any case the person that is responsible for the publication. When these figures are absent in the process, the printer is in charge.
According to the article 1 of the law on legal deposit: “it is legally required to deposit all the documents intended for public use that can be accessible through reading, listening or viewing, whatever their technical process of production, editing and diffusion is. The documents aimed at use by people with disabilities are included”.
The legal deposit concerns:
- printed material such as books, brochures, periodicals, geographic and topographic maps, atlases, posters, printed music
- audio and video material: sound recordings (of music or any other kind of audio), images and audiovisual recordings in general (in digital format as well)
- art graphics and artist videos
- photographs intended for publication
- films (in digital format as well)
- microforms (on photochemical format such as film celluloid)
- digital documents on computer support in general (e.g. CD-ROM)
It is not mandatory to deposit:
- excerpts, such as files containing a magazine article or a passage from a book, that are printed separately by using the same composition. The excerpts from musical scores are excluded.
- print proofs
- registers and forms
- lists of bills under protest and similar documents
- cadastral maps
- ordinary and detailed commercial advertising material
- photocopies
- typescripts or printed works produced by computer for personal use
- teaching material for in-house training courses
- graduation thesis
- provisional editions, in those cases where the definitive edition is published
- publications by foreigner publishers (even if printed in Italy)
- soon to be published articles that are printed independently or by the university exclusively for competitive purposes
| Attention: in the event that university competition notices require the legal deposit of this type of document, they must be sent by registered mail, the receipt of which will be proof of delivery. |
For further clarifications and information, contact the Legal Deposit Office here:
bu-to.depositolegale@cultura.gov.it
Documents to be filed:
The obligation of the legal deposit is fulfilled with the delivery of two copies to the national archives of editorial production (located at the central national libraries of Rome and Florence) and two copies to the archives of regional editorial production (the depository libraries were identified by the Decree of the Minister of Culture of 28 December 2007).
For publishers based in Piedmont Region:
| Type of documents | Regional archives | National archives |
| Books, brochures, periodicals, geographic and topographic maps, atlases, posters, printed music, in digital format as well | n. 1 copy to the National University Library of Turin
n. 1 copy to the depository library in the province reference |
n. 1 copy to the National Central Library of Rome
n. 1 copy to the National Central Library of Florence |
| Audio and video documents | n. 1 copy to the National University Library of Turin | n. 1 copy to the Central Institute for Sound and Audiovisual Heritage |
| Art graphics and artist videos | n. 1 copy to the National University Library of Turin | n. 1 copy to the National Institute for Graphics in Rome |
| Photographic documents | n. 1 copy to the Turin Cinema Museum | n. 1 copy to the National Institute for Graphics in Rome |
| Films registered in the public register of cinematography held by the SIAE | n. 1 copy to the Turin Cinema Museum | n. 1 copy to Cineteca Nazionale the Italian national film library in Rome |
Regulations:
- Law no. 106, 15 April 2004
Rules on the legal deposit of documents of cultural interest intended for public use (Official Journal no. 98 of 27 April 2004) - Presidential Decree no. 252, 3 May 2006
Regulations on the legal deposit of documents of cultural interest intended for public use (Official Gazette no. 191 of 18 August 2006) - Ministerial Decree for Cultural Heritage and Activities of 28 December 2007 identifying the depository institutions (Official Gazette no. 38 of 14 February 2008)
- Piedmont Regional Council Resolution no. 38-6128 of 11 June 2007 in which the institutes intended for the conservation of documents published in Piedmont are identified.
Please note that some clarification regarding the application of the Regulation have been published by the General Directorate for book heritage and cultural institutions on the websites http://www.librari.beniculturali.it/ and http://www.bibliotechepubblichestatali.it/.
Short guide to sending documents to the National University Library:
The documents must be delivered to the library directly or sent by any other means within 60 days from their publication (see art. 7 – DPR 252/2006).
The documents must be enclosed in packages which must bear the words on the outside: “non-commercial specimens for legal deposit according to the law no. 106 of 15 April 2004” (see art. 10 – DPR 252/2006).
Inside each package, there must be two copies of a list stating all the documents contained in the package, with all the elements necessary for the identification of each document.
The library will verify the content of the package. If it doesn’t find any irregularities it will return, appropriately endorsed, one of the copies of the list. This copy constitutes a receipt and must be retained by the interested party.
Forms:
In order to make the legal deposit methods uniform, some forms have been developed which we recommend using for the delivery of documents.
These forms, in Word and Excel format, differ depending on the type of the documents sent:
It is essential that the form is correctly filled in and is always included in the package.