Effective Date March 2024
Responsible Party Associate Dean for Collections and Content Strategy
Definitions
Books and other materials are resources commonly found in libraries including printed books, digital resources, audio and video recordings, archival materials, and documents.
Policy Purpose and Scope
New York University Libraries has greatly benefited from gifts to its collections and is grateful for the generosity of our donors. However, we are unable to accept many of the materials offered to us. This policy provides guidelines for individuals or organizations wishing to donate materials to the Libraries. In most cases, we cannot accept unsolicited gifts, but we may be able to suggest other worthy organizations for your collections.
Materials We Do Not Accept
We do not accept materials that duplicate items already held in our collections or that fall outside the scope of our collecting policies and targeted growth areas. In general, we do not accept:
- Materials in poor condition
- Textbooks
- Children’s books
- Popular fiction
- Individual issues of journals or periodicals
- Popular magazines and newspapers
- Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Donation Process
Upon receipt, donated materials become the property of New York University Libraries, and though we may add them to our collection, we reserve the right to all decisions about donated materials, including those regarding storage, location, access, use, digitization, and removal.
NYU Libraries cannot offer appraisals of gifts, though we can acknowledge your donation with a letter that includes a count of items added to our collection.
Donating to General Collections
If you are interested in donating to the Libraries’ general circulating collections, please do not send donations without contacting us first. When you contact us, please send an inventory of your collection (title, author, publication date) to our Collection Development team at library.gifts@nyu.edu. We will respond within 3 weeks.
Donating to Special Collections
If you are interested in donating archival materials, personal papers, or other unique or rare items, please contact NYU Libraries Special Collections at special.collections@nyu.edu, providing a description of the items you are interested in donating. Note that, as with the general policy, Special Collections does not accept duplicate materials or items that do not fit within their collecting policies.