Donating to The Park Library
[Link to donation in 2004 of Harper's Weekly (1861-1865) to The Park Library]
As with most academic libraries, our Park Library has guidelines covering donations and gifts to its collections from faculty members, alumni, students, and benefactors. Most importantly, this generosity from our colleagues and friends is warmly welcomed and sincerely appreciated.
Before we go further, an introduction to our School's fund-raising campaign, the School's foundation, and a link to the University's development office is in order. A click on this link will bring you to our School’s web site and it’s development program.
CURRENT COLLECTIONS
Our Park Library enjoys gifts that support the collections and equipment needed to maintain our state-of-the-art facility. Donations to help cover the accelerating costs of subscribing to newspapers, professional journals, annual reference books, and electronic databases are especially appreciated. These subscriptions form the costliest part of our Library's budget.
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Preference is given to materials published prior to 1950. For example:
newspaper centennial and other special editions
scholarly journals (if our Library does not have the issues
offered)
mass communication research reports
journalism feature films
journalism biography, history, advertising, public relations,
and photography books
Those early materials are indeed valuable because they are rare.
Our Library is particularly eager to receive gifts books published by our School's current and former faculty members as well as our School's alumni. A total of nearly 570 books (approximately 150 faculty-authored books plus close to 420 alumni-authored books) are in this collection. These books are showcased in our Park Library to honor former School of Journalism faculty member Walter Spearman, 1908-1987.
GENERAL GUIDELINES
Our Park Library director requires advance notice of what is being offered. It is important to determine if the material is appropriate for our collection and if we have the space and the preservation techniques to properly accommodate environmentally sensitive materials. If there is another, more suitable collection willing to accept and process the offered materials, our Park Library director will advise you.
If a number of books, serials, papers, etc., are included in any single donation, we urgently request that a complete inventory accompany the gift of the material. Our Library simply doesn't have the staff or time to undertake this essential task.
No one on our Park Library staff is qualified to appraise gifts of materials for tax purposes. There are at least two resources that should help the potential donor determine how to obtain a book appraisal. Web sites such as http://www.bookfinder.com should help donors locate the current value of book titles. In addition, the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of American http://www.abaa.org offers a database of book titles and booksellers. Establishing the value of newspapers and photo collections is difficult at best. Our Park Library director will work with any donor seeking information on how locate knowledgeable appraisers.
In determining the value of gifts to our Library, we consider our Library's total collection development plan, what we have currently in our catalog and what are likely areas for our School's future instruction and research needs. Our Library’s catalog of books and serials can be searched (by title and author) in UNC’s Online Catalog. About 10% of our book collection is unique and therefore not listed on UNC’s Online Catalog.
As always, we solicit inquiries about making donations and gifts to our Park Library. Please contact the Park Library's director by phone (919) 843-8300 or by email. Mail can be addressed to:
Barbara
Semonche, Park Library Director
UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Carroll Hall, CB# 3365
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
June, 2005
Gift to The Park Library: 2004
