Donation Criteria for Books

Organizations and individuals frequently express an interest in donating books and other resources to libraries. Generally, professional library staff must review potential library donations using the same criteria as purchased material.  

Additional criteria include the following:

• Donated materials should be new or barely used (in good to excellent condition with no writing or other defacing), SMOKE and mold free;

• Reference materials, including atlases, encyclopedias, subject specific multi-volume sets, and other non-fiction resources should be no more than three years old;

• Fiction books should be no more than eight years old with the exception of books by well known children’s authors and classics or other titles specified by library staff;

• All materials should have a reading level and an interest level of kindergarten through 6th grade and be of high literary quality;

• Materials that generally are not appropriate for library use, such as textbooks, will not be accepted.