Donations & Gifts Policy
-
Introduction
The University of South Australia Library welcomes financial gifts and donations of books and other library materials. Donations are generally accepted for inclusion in the collections on the basis of support to the University's teaching, learning and research focus. Materials which fall within the scope of the Library’s Collection Development policy and which are not already held within the Library collection are particularly welcome.
The Library encourages retiring staff to consider donating relevant academic items from their collections to the Library. Academic staff, Divisions and Schools are also encouraged to deposit two copies of their publications to the Library. One copy is put into the Deposit Materials Collection and subsequent copies go into the appropriate campus collection.
-
Guidelines for acceptance of donations
Donations accepted are those that support the teaching, learning and research scholarship focus of the University. The Library is particularly interested in:
- scholarly resources
- current edition textbooks
- published resources associated with the University, its predecessors, and associated parties
- unpublished material if it adds to an existing area of strength or supports teaching and research
- material on indigenous studies, art, architecture, water policy, sustainability and South Australian education
- research degree theses and other high quality academic work accepted by the University under its Guidelines for the acceptance of theses and other works
- journal donations, including backsets, that complete existing holdings in our collections and which are not held in digital collections
Donations which may not be accepted include resources which duplicate current holdings, superseded editions of textbooks, items in poor physical conditions or in obsolete formats, out of date content, incomplete sets or where the resource constitutes unpublished or archival materials not of relevance to the Library’s special collecting areas
-
Conditions of acceptance
The Library reserves the right to accept or decline donations, and to dispose of unwanted resources in accordance with its Disposal guidelines. Donated resources are only accepted on the understanding that they become the property of the Library. As a general principle, the Library will not accepted conditional donations where restrictions are place on the use or accommodation of the resources.
All resources accepted as donations are processed into the collection in the same manner as those acquired by purchase or subscription. The Library will decide on the appropriate location of the resources, and determine issues of retention and future weeding according to its Collection Management Guidelines.
Acceptance of substantial collections and material with implications for housing and disposition should be referred to the Director, Library Services.
-
Donations and tax benefits
4.1 Cultural Gifts Program
The Library is eligible to participate in the Commonwealth Government’s Cultural Gifts Program (opens in new window) which provides tax incentives to encourage gifts of culturally significant items from private collections to Australia’s public art galleries, museums, libraries and archives. The Library welcomes enquiries about donating important collections or individual titles under this program which offers the donor a tax deduction for the market value of the donation. Due to administrative costs and valuations fees associated with this program, the Library may not accept cultural gifts donations where the market value is less than $10,000.
Please contact the Director, Library Services if you wish to discuss donating to the Library under the Cultural Gifts Program.
4.2 Financial gifts
The University welcomes financial donations to the Library and these may be targeted to the purchase of resources for particular subject areas. Gifts to the University are tax deductible as the University of South Australia qualifies as a tax exempt organisation under section 78 of the Income Tax Assessment Act. For information on how to give to the Library please refer to Make a gift
-
Acknowledgement of donations
Donations (PDF 39kb, opens in new window) are acknowledged in writing by the Director, Library Services.
A bookplate acknowledging the donation is provided when the resource is processed.
Materials, including e-books, purchased from financial donations of $100
or more are acknowledged by e-bookplates in the catalogue record and placing
a
bookplate in the resource/s.
-
Approval and Version History
| Date | Action |
|---|---|
| September 2001 | Created |
| October 2007 | Updated and Approval LOG |
| October 2009 | Review |
Printable version of this page (PDF 70kb, opens in new window)