Donations and Gifts By: Stacy Lohman

Receiving Gifts/Donations At some point in one’s Library Media career, gifts or donations will be made to the library. Some of the items will be a wonderful addition to the collection, while others should not be added. As the Library Media Specialists, it is your job to determine which category your item falls.

How do you proceed to incorporate this material into your collection? The first step would be to evaluate all of the materials that have been donated. If these materials will be beneficial to the library, a special bookplate with an appropriate inscription may designate accepted material. If a gift is integrated into the collection, the library reserves the right to decide the conditions of display, housing, access, and withdrawal of the material.

What steps would you follow in evaluating these donations to the library? The librarian must review potential library donations using the same criteria as all purchased material. The following slides show what criteria the librarian needs to go by in order to review the donated materials.

1. Donated materials should be new or barely used (in good to excellent condition with no writing or other defacing), complete, clean, durable, and attractive. Good AdditionNot a Good Addition

2. Reference materials, including atlases, encyclopedias, subject specific multi-volume sets, and other non-fiction resources should be no more than five years old; science, medical, computer, and other resources in areas in which information quickly becomes outdated should be no more than three years old. Book sets should be complete.

3. Fiction books should be no more than eight years old with the exception of books by well known children’s authors and classics.

4. All materials should have a reading level and an interest level of Pre-K through 12th grade

5. Non-fiction books should not reflect outdated stereotypes of racial or cultural groups in either the text or the illustrations and should avoid oversimplification of complex issues and other distortions that would give readers erroneous or misleading information.

Following the previous criteria will allow the Library Media Specialists to make a sound decision regarding the addition of donated materials to the collection.

Discuss your thought process, potential issues in including or not including materials in your collection. Individuals desiring to donate media materials to a school media center should contact the school principal and the licensed elementary library media specialist assigned to the school to discuss the potential donation. The principal and the licensed library media specialist will determine if the donation will be beneficial to the school and, if so, accept the donation.

What do you do with materials you do not keep? Gifts that are declined are returned to the donor with a brief explanation of why the item is unsuitable. If the donor does not want the books, they are placed on the book swap table for teachers and staff to take.

How do you address inquiries from the family and your principal about the disposition of the materials donated? The school principal and/or the library media specialist should respond to the donation with a letter of appreciation. The letter may include, but is not limited to, the following suggested response:

1.Start by addressing the donation and giving thanks from students The faculty, staff, and students of (school name) appreciate your recent gift of (specify the donation) to the school media center. Example:

2.Next, discuss review policy. Example: Please understand that (name of school) has a Library Media Selection and Review Policy in place. Each acquisition, including gifts, must meet the selection criteria as stated in the policy. The licensed library media specialist assigned to our school carefully reviews each gift to determine if it meets the selection criteria. (Name of School) reserves the right to place each gift in the most appropriate location or program.

3. Last, end the letter with a final thank you for the donation Example: Thank you for your contribution and your support of (school name)’s educational program.

Using the information provided in the PowerPoint, receiving donations can be a pleasant experience as long as the guidelines for adding the items to the collection is upheld.

References: Archdiocese of Louisville library media guidelines. (2011). Retrieved April 8, 2014, from