Hi, Tom--

Yeah, all of that.

Cash is preferable for a lot of reasons.

The library can purchase new materials which are much more likely to circulate than older, used ones. People like new stuff: it's shiny and it smells new. Also, the paper quality (non-acid or alkaline being the standard these days), and the binding in the case of children's books, can be selected for. Used items that would be considered in fine condition for a personal library often won't stand up to the harder use of public circulation.

People say that donations are free. This isn't quite true. We still incur cataloging costs, for items not already included in the collection, and although I can catalog a dog's behind, my job description is not one of a cataloguer. I haven't the time to sit in an office and pour over the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules and agonize over in which field a detail belongs. So outsourcing original cataloguing costs money. And typically, any item prepared for circulation must be handled anywhere from 7 to 10 times to prepare it: spine labels, bar codes, property stamps, book jacket protectors, spine reinforcement... so that's staff time and specialized supplies. "Free" things cost from $3 to $10 before they hit the shelves, in PA, where librarians aren't paid as highly as in some other states. "Prices may vary in your area."

Fox pointed out the duplication problem. I can't tell you how many copies of The Babysitters' Club series we have received in donation. They're still popular with younger girls, but I can't spare the shelf space for 12 sets of 160 volumes. I mean, where would I put Louisa May Alcott and Jules Verne?

Nobody wants somebody else's elderly encyclopedias for a library, even though George Washington is dead in all of them. We need up-to-date non-fiction, especially in science and tech. With poetry and other literature, that's less of an issue. However, a book about California that doesn't mention Silicon Valley because it didn't exist yet, or the title Let's Visit the USSR, isn't likely to be of much use except as an historical document.

I love Air & Space magazine! I subscribe to it at home, and we subscribe to it at work. But if the three people who sent the library gift subscriptions had asked us, I think we would have told them that 4 copies per month of the same magazine is excessive. Cash would have been better.

And then there's the question of balance and topic flooding, which I mentioned in my post to Scott. Libraries are supposed to have, and many of them do have, collection development policies to direct the use of library resources, including shelf space, for the benefit of the citizens of the community. The collection is supposed to reflect the needs of the community, the composition of the community, the interests of the community, the needs of individual users, and a variety of viewpoints presented in a more or less balanced fashion. Add to this, we're supposed to strike a balance between the popular and the excellent. You can't get that by blindly accepting all donations. But you can get it by taking suggestions.

When I say "a more or less balanced fashion", I mean that "balance" is not a well-defined condition, but you know it when you see it. As an example: in our juvenile religion section (the 200s, for you Dewey Decimal fans), we have a large number of Bible stories and other Christian books for children, because our population is predominantly Christian, so that's where most of our demand is. We also have Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Wiccans in the community, so we have some age-appropriate books on those religions and their holidays and rituals. We have a couple on Buddhism, a set of young children's books on what it's like to be a Quaker, a Mormon, a Catholic, etc. (one of the titles is I Am a Rastafarian, but hey, it's a set), and we have a lot of classical mythology and a little Norse, to support student projects. In mythology, we also have two Egyptian and one Mayan, because I think they're beautiful. ;) So, if balance were determined solely on having an equal number of books on every subject, I have failed. If it's determined on having only things directly pertinent to people living here (Rastafarians?) I've also failed. If we had more religion books than anything else, or only old and out-of-date items, I've failed. But balance is a combination of all of these factors, which is why a library has to be built carefully, and not allowed just to accrete. Sometimes I buy things because they give me heartburn, and sometimes I buy things just because we have nothing on the subject and they please me, which is allowed if I only do it once in a while. That's called professional discretion.

If the library just grows out of everybody's house, then new things would be few and far between, especially for people whose imaginations are necessarily limited by their educations or their pocketbooks.

Regards--
Mary Anne