Donor Relations

Now that I'm home I'd like to take a closer look at Friday's class. We began the day with a discussion about donor relations that focused on copyright issues and the essential document, a deed of gift. Takeaway points include:

1. Never take anything on deposit without a deed of gift stating terms of copyright holdings.


2. Don't accept anything with permanent restrictions. Restraints of this nature relegate your gift to storage with no further opportunities for use.


3. Short restrictions are acceptable. For example, personal letters cannot be published during the author's lifetime due to privacy issues.


4. Know what to keep and what to throw away! The deed of gift should cover disposal of items that have no value. Options include returning them to the donor or throwing them away, but you can do neither of these without a well defined deed of gift.

Some details of donor relations amount to pure common sense such as sending the donor a formal thank you note denoting the contents of the gift. After all, that's how mother taught me to write a thank you note. Further acknowledgements may take the form of bookplates, exhibitions, both physical and virtual, as well as publications.

Appraisals are part of the gift process. Several good points were discussed including:

1. Librarians cannot appraise the gift, neither can the institution due to conflict of interest issues.
2. The IRS form 8283 is used by the appraiser. If a gift is under $5,000 the form is not required.
3. Librarians cannot recommend an appraiser but can provide a list of qualified appraisers.
4. Contrary to popular belief, the IRS does not prohibit libraries paying for appraisals.

We closed the day with the mystery book exercise. This time there was an additional question: Would the book at hand be added to special collections or would it be returned to the open stacks?

The first time we used the mystery book exercise (see Tuesday, July 22nd post) it was to familarize ourselves with a new way of examing a book. This time the application was to examine the book for suitablility for special collections, providing yet another way to view the book.

It was a great way to end the week. We'll be taking everything we've learned home with us and applying the lessons to our daily activities.