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Donations Policy

Digital Learning and Library Services welcome offers of donations that complement our existing collections and support the current learning, teaching, and research activities of the University.

Due to the space and the staff expertise required to catalogue donations for discovery, we assess all offers of material to ensure this is still current or of historical relevance to University research, is not already duplicated in Library collections, and is in good condition for readers to use. Any accepted donations become property of the University Library and subject to the terms in our Collection Development Policy.

Please note that unfortunately we cannot accept unsolicited donations so make sure to contact us before sending any material to avoid disappointment.

Donors will be asked to accept the following conditions:

Items donated to the Library become the property of the University and may be withdrawn, offered for sale, or donated to charitable organisations if no longer required.
The University or Library cannot accept responsibility for future valuations of donations.
The Library reserves the right to locate material at the campus and in the collection which is most beneficial for students and staff. It will not normally be possible to keep donated items together as a discrete collection.
Large donations should be discussed in advance with the Acquisitions and Licensing Manager and a list of the collection supplied for consultation prior to donation.
Donors who wish to apply special conditions to their donations must agree these in advance with the Acquisitions and Licensing Manager.
The Library prioritises processing of material according to current learning and teaching priorities and cannot guarantee to make donations available for access within any specific timescale.
The Library would like to acknowledge donations with a bookplate inside the book and a note in the catalogue, if this is agreeable to the donor. Donors should confirm in advance if they do not wish to be acknowledged in this way.
The following donations will not normally be accepted:
- Old, superseded editions of textbooks.
- Duplicates of existing materials within library collections.
- Incomplete runs of periodicals.
- Resources where the subject matter is not of relevance to the current University curriculum, or the reading level is not appropriate.
- Items are in poor physical condition: e.g. where pages show signs of damp, mould or spotting, there are loose, damaged, or missing pages, handwritten notes or underlining in the text, obtrusive marks of ownership or previous library ownership stamps.

Contacts

Suzy Fisher
Acquisitions and Licensing Manager
Email: s.fisher@uwtsd.ac.uk

For enquiries about donations to our special collections and archives please contact specialcollections@uwtsd.ac.uk