Policies for Donors of Library Materials
RIT Library welcomes any size donations of books, periodicals, and other
library materials as a valuable way to develop its resources. All gifts entail
initial expenses to the library to review, catalog, and process, as well as
continuing expenses to house and maintain materials that have been added to
the collection. Therefore, the library staff must be selective in accepting
gifts to ensure donated materials support the library’s goals for collection
development. The following statement explains the library’s policies and procedures
concerning donations of library materials. The RIT Library staff is happy
to discuss these guidelines with potential donors and invites inquiries about
gifts to the collections.
Sources of Donations
Subject to the conditions described below, RIT Library will accept gifts
of library materials appropriate to its collections from any donor, including
current and former RIT students, faculty, and staff and any other individuals
and organizations interested in the library’s collections and services.
Review and Acceptance of Donations
The subject librarian(s) whose areas of responsibility are represented in the
potential donation will review the material from a description or itemized inventory
supplied by the donor or by examining the collection itself. The subject librarian(s)
and, when appropriate, the Head of Collection Development/Acquisitions, Head of Reference
and/or the Director of Libraries, will determine whether the content, format, physical
condition, and size of the gift are suitable for addition to the RIT Libraries'
collections.
The donor will be notified within two weeks after the review whether or not
the library will accept the gift. If the gift is not accepted, the subject librarian(s)
will suggest other potential collections for the donation.
Transportation of Donations to the Library
Donors are encouraged to consider the costs of transporting their gifts to
the library as part of their donations. The library staff will work with the
donor to make transportation arrangements convenient to both parties. Gifts
may be sent to the library through the U.S. Postal Service or other delivery
services. Both United Parcel Service and Federal Express offer home pick-up
services, but materials must be packed and weighed by the sender. Contact UPS
at 800-445-4424 and Federal Express at 800- 238-5355 to arrange for pick-ups
anywhere in the Western New York area and for more information about packing
requirements, charges, etc. If the donor wishes to transport the gift him/herself,
library staff will assist with unloading and moving materials into the library
building.
Retention of Donations
Although the library staff makes every effort to accept only materials appropriate
to the RIT Library collections, it does not guarantee that all gift items
will be added to the collections. Inappropriate titles or duplicates of items
already in the library collections may be sold, traded for other materials through
library exchange programs, given away to other libraries, distributed to RIT
students, or discarded.
The library does not guarantee that gifts which are added to the collection
will be kept in perpetuity. The RIT Library collections are weeded regularly
based on the guidelines of the library’s collection development policy statement.
All items in the library collections are subject to the same criteria for retention.
Acknowledgement of Donations
The donor will receive a letter acknowledging his/her gift within thirty days
of its receipt by the library. If the donor makes a series of contributions
to the library collection over a period of time, the library staff will prepare
annual summary of the year’s gifts instead of individual letters of acknowledgement
for each gift. If the gift is received in December, every effort will be made
to acknowledge the gift before December 31. If this deadline cannot be met,
the letter of acknowledgement will cite the day the donation was received by
the library.
If the donor requires itemization of the gift, the inventory must be supplied
by the donor. If itemization is not required, a general description of the content,
format, and extent (number of items) of the gift will be provided in the letter
of acknowledgement.
A book plate acknowledging the donor will be affixed to the inside front cover
or flyleaf of all gift books and bound volumes of periodicals retained for the
collection.
Valuation of Donations
The donor bears full responsibility for determining the value of the gift.
The RIT Library staff will not provide appraisals of gifts to the collection,
as Internal Revenue Code, Section 2512(c), “Valuation of Gifts” (1986) precludes
the recipient from evaluating a gift. The text of the code is appended to this
policy statement as is a copy of the Internal Revenue Service Form 8283, “Noncash
Charitable Contributions,” for gifts valued at five hundred dollars or more.
The library will not pay for outside appraisers to evaluate gifts to the collection.
A selected list of reputable Rochester-area book appraisers and standard print
sources of book sales information is appended to this policy statement. Subject
librarians may be able to advise donors on locating appraisers for large and/or
specialized gifts.
Placement and Processing of Donations
All gifts accepted for the library will be integrated into existing collections.
The location of gifts within the collections will be determined by the subject
librarian(s) based on the format, physical condition, content, and value of
the materials.
Gifts will be processed (cataloged, bound (if necessary), and labeled) as the
workflow of the library’s Acquisitions Department and Cataloging Department
permit. It may be necessary to store large gifts until the staff time and other
departmental resources are available for processing.
Maintained by Sheila Smokey
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