How to look a gift horse in the mouth, or how to tell people you can't use their old junk in your library

Abstract

Discusses how to deal with donations of materials to the library. Although libraries are always seeking appropriate materials to add to their collections, many donations are not suitable. Donors often have as their sole goal to get rid of books and other materials and find it hard to understand why librarians refuse to accept the materials offered. Provides a step‐by‐step plan for dealing with donors based on the premiss that a library must have a collection development policy which explains what materials the library does collect. This is the basis on which donations can be accepted or refused.