Deposit digital publications

Canadian publishers and producers are to submit final versions of these digital publications:

  • monographs (books, audiobooks, maps, and sheet music)
  • serials (magazines, journals, newsletters, annual reports, newspapers)

Contact us if you have ONIX for Books data and would like to set up automated deliveries of your publications.

On this page

Eligible files

Accepted formats

We accept these file types up to 4 GB:

  • audiobook (AAC, MP3, and WAV)
  • text (EPUB and PDF)
  • image (JPEG, JPG, PNG, TIF and TIFF)
  • spreadsheet (XLS and XLSX)
  • compressed (ZIP)

Formats not accepted

  • documents (DOC, DOCX)
  • web files (HTML, XML, PHP, ASP, PDF flipbooks)
  • proprietary formats (MOBI, Kindle, or iBook)
  • files with digital rights management (DRM) software

Deposit monographs

1. Create an account

First-time users must create an account. The information you provide is saved to your profile.

  1. On the login screen, select Create account
  2. Enter your email address and the digits you see in the image, then click Next
  3. You will get an email with 2 options to verify your email address
  4. On the Complete registration screen, create a password and enter your name, organization and phone number
  5. You will be returned to the login screen
  6. Enter your email address (as your username) and password

2. Choose conditions of access

Decide on the conditions under which the public may view your files:

Open access
Anyone may view and download the files from the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website
Restricted access

The public may only view the files onsite at LAC using computers that cannot print, download or transfer files

3. Submit items

You may submit monographs one title at a time, or in bulk using a spreadsheet that we provide.

Submit a single monograph

Use these instructions to submit final versions of a title, which may be in multiple formats (such as PDF and EPUB) or in multiple files (such as an audiobook). This form is the easiest way to submit one or several monographs. You must already have an account (see Create an account).

Information we collect from you may be made publicly available (see Use of personal information).

Login to deposit publications

  1. Under Forms select Legal deposit of a digital publication
  2. Complete the form
  3. Click Submit
Submit monographs in bulk

Use these instructions to submit final versions of 10 to 50 titles of the same type at a time (such as all books or all audiobooks). This method requires you to be familiar with spreadsheets (using Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, or OpenOffice Calc). You must already have an account (see Create an account).

Login to deposit publications

  1. Under Forms > Available forms select Legal deposit of digital publications > Bulk submission
  2. Click on Download BAC-LAC metadata spreadsheet to save the spreadsheet to your computer
  3. Rename the spreadsheet to begin with "BAC-LAC" for validation purposes (such as "BAC-LAC-metadata.xlsx" or "bac-lac2.xlsx")
  4. Open the spreadsheet and provide these details for each title: filename title, publisher, place of publication, year of publication, language
  5. When you have completed the spreadsheet, save it, complete the rest of the form, and add the spreadsheet with your publication files at step 4 on the form
  6. Click Submit
  7. To deposit another type of material, start a new form and new spreadsheet

4. After you deposit

  • You will receive an email confirmation with a list of your submitted files
  • We will add a record describing the publication to our catalogue Aurora
  • We will archive the files in our digital repository

Deposit serials

1. Email us

For new serial publications, email Depotlegalnumerique-DigitalLegalDeposit@bac-lac.gc.ca a copy of the issue (or a link to a copy) for our review. We will email you with instructions. After a title has been accepted and catalogued, you may email ongoing issues to us. Wait until we have responded to your first email before sending more issues.

2. Choose  conditions of access

If we acquire your serial publication, we will ask you to decide on the conditions under which the public may view your files:

Open access
Anyone may view and download the files from the Library and Archives (LAC) website
Restricted access

The public may only view the files onsite at LAC using computers that cannot print, download or transfer files

3. After you deposit

  • We will add a record describing the publication to our catalogue Aurora
  • We will archive the files in our digital repository