The Copyright Act has also provided the Library with an increasing
amount of material. Like so many other of the Library's activities,
this was foreshadowed in the days when James Collier was Librarian. In
his report for 1888, he suggested that the time was ripe for the
enacting of a Colonial Copyright Act. Whatever was done about this
there was one thing that ought to be done immediately and that was the
passing of a law making provision for the deposit of one copy of every
colonial publication in a central library, which library could only be
the Parliamentary Library.
A letter was written from the chairman of the Library Committee to the
Premier asking for instructions to be given to the Solicitor-General to
prepare a Copyright Act, but nothing was done. The matter was raised
again by the Acting Librarian in 1891 and 1894. In 1895 Mr W.
Hutchison, M.H.R. for Dunedin, introduced the Literary Copyright Act
requiring the deposit in the Library of two copies of works published
in New Zealand. Nothing came of the Bill, which was discharged, though
the Library Committee in welcoming it had, however, considered one copy
sufficient.
There the matter rested until 1903 when two vigorous supporters of the
Library, the Hon. R. McNab and the Hon. John Rigg, introduced the
General Assembly Library Bill requiring publishers to present two
copies of their books to the Library. The Bill passed without
difficulty and became law on 30 October 1903. Though there was some
argument whether the Act required the deposit of issues of periodicals,
the Act was generally welcomed, and increased the amount of New Zealand
material reaching the Library.
There has been little change in the provisions affecting deposit,
though the previous Act is no longer in force, and has been replaced by
section 52 of the Copyright Act 1913.
In the 55 years during which deposit has been required the Library has
taken its responsibility for preservation seriously and now possesses
thousands of volumes not only of books, but of newspapers, periodicals,
and pamphlets. In addition, every attempt has been made to obtain
material which for various reasons was not obtained at the time of
publication. While not by any means perfect, the New Zealand collection
of the Library is probably without equal.