Thursday, October 21, 2010
Gifts for Libraries
The class that I chose to take was called Gifts for Libraries: Be Careful What You Wish For. There is both good news and bad news when it comes to gifts and libraries. The good news is that gifts are many. The bad news is that a small percentage of those gifts are what the library actually wants or needs. There are three types of gifts: monetary gifts, in-kind contributions, and something someone wants to get rid of. The course mainly focused on the third "gift" because these cause the most problems for librarians. The challenges when it comes to gifts are storage, staff time and space spent sorting and evaluating, environmental and health issues, disposal or disposition of gifts, and appropriate acknowledgment. The course also stated that gifts with strings should be avoided at all costs. An example of this would be if someone wants to restrict access to only the Garden Club. One other issue I had not thought of was that librarians cannot list the actual value of an item because it is considered beyond a librarian's knowledge and you can get into legal issues. It is a donor's responsibility to get an item appraised. There are many advantages to making a gift policy. For example, a policy designates who is responsible for making decisions, it provides rationales to justify what is and is not an acceptable gift, it can eliminate the problem of unwanted materials, it saves the cost of of staff time and disposing items, and it can educate the public. The course went though a lot more when it comes to legal issues and what is a good gift and what is not. Overall, I found it to be a great resource when it comes to deciding what is acceptable for your library and perhaps making a gift policy for your own library. It applies to our class because it compared choosing gifts to collection development and weeding.
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The weeding course I took touched on this subject just a bit, and was thought provoking. Goes to show that having a written policy in place can help the librarian make sound choices without worrying about legal issues.
ReplyDeleteWhen we looked at different libraries collection development plans I was surprised that they were so detailed. The more I learn about different aspects of it, I can see why it is so important to have a well thought out plan to deal with issues like gifts.
ReplyDeleteI think many people, myself included, hate to throw books away, so they figure the libray should have them. This puts the library in an awkward position because they are the ones that end up dealing with can't be used.
ReplyDeleteI've taken the weeding course as well, and based on what it and you have told me, a codified gift policy seems essential in order for a library to avoid legal and social trouble. In my own personal opinion, accepting gifts often seems like way more trouble than they're worth.
ReplyDeleteHaving a policy in place for receiving gifts is important. It spells out exactly what will be accepted, the terms regarding the length of time the gift will be held, and I have seen in some policies, notification to the donor when the gift will be taken out of the collection and when the donor can come and retrieve their gift if they choose. Good idea for any repercussions from eliminating a gift from the collection.
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