The Study Of Legal Deposit System In South Africa

Legal deposit system can be broadly defined as "a government provision which compels producers of all types of publications to deposit a certain number of copies of each publication in designated or similar institutions". It is a system that has been in practice in various countries for many centuries and is widely acknowledged as the main instrument for building up and preserving a nation’s published heritage. To a certain extent, it ensures the comprehensiveness of the collections and protects the country’s ethnic cultural heritage. Legal deposit system is still a well willed system of collecting and preserving the past and the current wisdom for future generations. Globally, a country has a perfect legal deposit system, which depends on a complete legal deposit legislation. Now there is a comparatively complete legal deposit system in South Africa which regard "Legal Deposit Act" as the core. It has a positive effect on the South African cultural heritage protection.This article mainly tries to understand the status quo of the South African librarianship, researches the history and legislative process of the system, and analyses the main contents and characteristics of it in South Africa. After having summarized the related issues to the legal deposit system, investigates the implementation and utilization of the system in South Africa. And then gives some recommendations on how to optimize legal deposit legislation in China in the future.