Like most of us, I get this question several times a month. I have been directing faculty or members in the community with significant collections they want to free themselves of to Zubal Books – they are Cleveland based but send out trucks to pick up books that they resell and have been easy to deal with. Please visit http://www.zubalbooks.com/ I discourage sending old dated materials to libraries overseas just so that they can have English content, unless it is a very specialized collection that fills a gap. It is expensive and not usually in the library’s best interests.
Julia Gelfand
UCI
From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 07:04:48 -0700
Libraries struggle with donations: retired faculty, alumni friends,
people of a certain age looking to downsize would love to give us
their books, carefully selected and cared for over decades. Several
problems arise: the books themselves are often very largely
duplicates of material we already have; or deal with areas where we
don't have an interest in collecting; and every volume accepted comes
with a cost in staff time for handling and cataloging and in housing
costs over time. So libraries are often now more resistant and have
to be very sensitive to the disappointment we create.
I have an idea that I have seen somewhere efforts at providing
guidance for those who would donate academic books usefully -- at
broad, at home, bookdealers, etc. Can any of our learned readers
provide pointers to such guidance? I ask because I wonder if we
couldn't provide particularly academics useful practical guidance
through such information disseminated by e.g. a professional society
to its members. This can't be a unique or unheard-of problem.
With thanks for all pointers,
Jim O'Donnell
Arizona State University