THE Senate has approved a bill that substantially widens — taking into account the tremendous advance in technology over the past century — the kind of published material that have to be lodged by Jamaican publishers with the National Library.

If passed by the House, the bill will replace the Books (Preservation and Registration of Copies) Act of 1887, which essentially demands that three copies of each published book be lodged with the National Library.

Under the proposed Legal Deposit Act, published material in all formats — print, audiovisuals, films, videos, sound recordings, compact discs — will have to be deposited with the library within a month of publication and publishers and producers will have to file quarterly reports of any material produced over the preceding three months.

Failure to deposit the documents or file the reports will attract fines of up to $50,000 after conviction by a Resident Magistrate.

Opposition Jamaica Labour Party members opposed the requirement for quarterly reporting, saying that it should be annual and that the fines were too heavy. Anthony Johnson, the party’s spokesman on education and culture, argued that the provision would discourage publishing and printing.

However, they did not win support from independent senator, Professor Trevor Munroe, who voted in favour of the bill.

“It is necessary to replace the outmoded (1887) law with legislation which explicitly addressed the matter of legal deposit or works, thereby bringing Jamaica in line with accepted norms and international practices in this area,” explained education and culture minister, Burchell Whiteman.

According to Whiteman, an improved legal deposit system for published material would guarantee citizens and researchers access to “the country’s cultural collection”.

“Another important effect is that the legislation will greatly facilitate the development and maintenance of the Jamaica National Bibliography as Jamaica participates in the movement towards a universal bibliography control of information,” the minister said.

Whiteman assured Oswald Harding, the leader of Opposition business in the Senate, that the National Library could presently accommodate the contemplated increase in deposited documents.

“There are measures now in place to deal with the accommodation of what is there and what is foreseen,” Whiteman said. “…There are also medium-term plans to increase space.”

Harding was also concerned that treaties may not have been covered by the proposed legislation, but Whiteman said that a proper reading of the bill would indicate that they were in fact covered.