From: Paul Metz <pmetz_at_vt.edu>
Here at Virginia Tech we've noticed an increasing amount of overlap between
the books our generous friends want to give us and our existing
collections. Processing most gifts is no longer efficient, and so we are
thinking of switching from a posture of "sure, bring 'em, we'll find some
keepers" to "we only want the keepers but we'll have to work with you to
identify them in advance." If we do this, I anticipate that the donors of
many of the 3,000+ books we've been taking in annually will prefer to look
elsewhere. As you all know, often these are people breaking up a household
or an office and anxious to move fairly quickly.
Besides revising our policies to indicate this posture, being really
courteous but pretty firm about needing to see collections first, and
keeping a list of referrals (AAUW, others who conduct regular sales), if
anyone has tips, dos and don'ts etc they would like to share about how to
play this, please send them directly to me and I'll be glad to summarize to
the list. We are not able to be the interim depository for books headed to
the third world, so that's out. Thanks in advance for any ideas.
--
Paul Metz, Director of Collection Management
University Libraries -- Virginia Tech
P.O. Box 90001 / Blacksburg VA / 24062-9001
Ph: (540) 231-5663 FAX: (540) 231-3694 e-mail: pmetz_at_vt.edu
Received on Wed Nov 26 2003 - 13:28:51 EST