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Review and Acceptance

All donations must meet the guidelines of the Library’s collection policy. Donations are accepted on the understanding that no restrictions are placed on how the Library handles them. Upon receipt, all donated materials will become the property of the Library. The donor relinquishes all rights to ownership and dispensation. The Library reserves the right to make the final decision on retention, cataloguing treatment, and other considerations related to the use or disposal of the donated items.

Donations are designated for addition to the collections based on the recommendations of Collection Management and Development Librarian and/or respective subject liaison librarian in accordance with the Library’s collection development policies and priorities. Generally, donations are integrated into the general collection and are rarely treated as separate collections.

Factors considered when reviewing gifts include:

  • relevance to current faculty research interests and academic curricula
  • the strengths and weaknesses of existing collections
  • potential duplication with materials already held
  • currency of media format (e.g. VHS tapes, floppy diskettes will not be accepted)
  • the capability of the Library to process and house the materials
  • if multiple copies of a single title are donated, only one will be accepted

Materials which the Library does not collect

Items such as obsolete material (especially textbooks), material in poor physical condition, scattered or single volumes of a multi-volume set, individual magazine/journal issues, recreational readings (such as travel guides), and titles that the Library already owns may not be added to the collection. The Library reserves the right to dispose of unwanted donations through sale, exchange, donation to other libraries, or removal.

Memorial books

Subject to the agreement of the Library, donors may request the Library to affix a bookplate or label recognizing honorees and the donor inside each gift item.

Appraisals

The Library will under no circumstances attempt to assign monetary value or render a tax statement on donated items.

Acknowledgement

Donors are encouraged to leave his/her name and address so that the Library can send him/her a receipt in the form of a letter acknowledgement. The letter will acknowledge the number of volumes (or boxes) donated but not each individual title.

Last updated: 12 August 2019