A Subject-Oriented Approach to Gifts Management and Donor Relations: Policy and Outreach

Janice G. Norris
ABSTRACT. Gift books can be an important part of collection development. They can replace or add relatively rare or out-of-print titles, fill in missing volumes of a serial, and augment stagnant or reduced budgets. The important issue is to try to receive titles that are needed or that are relevant to the library users, which can be much more difficult than traditional acquisition methods. The increased duties of the reference librarians at Texas A&M University, including liaison work and collection development, have opened a door for donations still wider: the academic faculty and departments. This paper provides an overview of recent trends in gifts via a review of citations, then describes how departmental restructuring and a new building at Texas A&M influenced the Gifts Unit, the new role the subject-specialist reference librarians have within this unit, and the benefits of the librarians new liaison/collection development duties. Finally, general guidelines for processing gifts of serials and monographs are developed to assist those new to this role. [Article copies available for a fee from The
Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Gifts, subject specialists, liaison, collection development, donor relations, academic libraries
Janice G. Norris, PhD, MLS, is Geosciences Librarian, Science and Engineering Services, Evans Library Annex, Texas A&M University, 5000 TAMUS, College Station, TX 77843-5000 (E-mail: janice-g-norris@tamu.edu). The author wishes to acknowledge Wendi Arant Kaspar for suggestions and help in reviewing this article. Collection Management, Vol. 27(1) 2002 http://www.haworthpress.com/store/product.asp?sku=J105 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 10.1300/J105v27n01_04

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INTRODUCTION Gifts, both a blessing and curse, are at the forefront of thought in many academic libraries. Since 1995, more than 400 articles have been published concerning gifts and/or donations to libraries, and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has updated its decade-old SPEC Kit on Gifts and Exchange Functions. The update resulted in the 1999 ARL SPEC Kit 241: Gifts and Exchange Function in ARL Libraries, which noted that radical changes in gift policies and management had occurred during the previous 12 years as a result of technology advancement, library department adjustments, world political changes, and budgetary issues. The conclusion of the ARL study was that gifts and exchange programs have been significantly reduced in libraries. These findings are surprising because, with todays budgetary concerns, libraries can significantly increase relevant holding with gifts and donations. However, the 1999 ARL study did note that it would be unlikely that gift/exchange programs would completely disappear. Of course, monetary gifts are rarely refused. In fact, for the last seven and a half years, the majority of articles published concerning gifts enthusiastically describe large gifts or valuable collections that have been donated to libraries (see Table 1). Although much appreciated, endowments and monetary donations are not as prevalent as one might hope and may have strings attached that restrict libraries from applying them to areas most in need. Along with the scarcity of donors, budgetary concerns have geometrically increased due to serial-cost inflation and the added dimension of providing electronic resources. In addition to inflation, many libraries have faced major reductions in their budgets over the last few years or decades. Many libraries are coping by reducing their allotted monographic budget (Burnam 1998 and Mount 1989). Patricia Yocum predicted that it may well be that the budgetary problems libraries have been facing for the last twenty years are only a prelude to hasher ones coming in the next decade (Yocum 1989, 46). Indeed, this was the case for the 1990s, and the problems will probably extend into the next decade with the introduction of electronic formats into traditional collections of print materials. An often overlooked mode of supplementing a library collection is the donation of book collections, both small and large. However, donated book collections invariably include items that are not useful to educational or research goals along with items of value to the library collection. They also contain items that range in condition from good,

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nearly new to very poor, to essentially worthless. Transportation, storage, and processing costs still exist, and technical processing costs may exceed those of a book acquired through the normal acquisition means with the additional labor involved. The gift book has the potential to be extremely labor intensive, due to adding examination of the books condition to content evaluation, which also increases the load on binding and processing units, and the potential donor recognition costs. Although not directly purchased, a gift book is never free. A study at the Golda Meir Library at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee suggested that the processing cost of gift books should be proportional to their projected use. This study looked at the use of gift books in specific call number ranges and the investigators found that the purchased books circulated four times as often as the gift books. They suggested that the cost of accepting and adding a specific title in the call number ranges studied should not be more than one quarter the cost of purchasing and adding the book (Diodato and Diodato 1983). However, research and academic libraries can add valuable material to their collection via gifts without labor-intensive studies by using the subject specialists expertise. Often books that do not circulate frequently can be of extreme value to research, which has a narrower focus and subsequently a smaller user group. Subject specialists can significantly add to the value of the collection by recognizing important research material that might have a relatively low usage. In addition, they usually have close contact with the library user community and can determine the potential use of material without time-consuming studies. A major resource typically overlooked in the area of gifts and donations is the librarys subject-specialist librarian who is today often responsible for collection development. A 1999 study determined that academic subject specialists have eclectic duties including, among others, reference assistance, collection development, and faculty liaison activities (White 1999). This renaissance librarian is still often called a reference librarian but is now in a position to have first-hand knowledge concerning user needs, the authority to build a relevant collection, and the means to market the library. Unfortunately, the subject-specialist librarians role in collection development with respect to gifts is largely ignored in library literature. One article from the 1980s briefly touches on the importance of library staff with respect to unsolicited gifts, acknowledging that the service staff is often the first point of contact for prospective donors (Diodato and Diodato 1983). A more recent publication describes how Colorado State University (CSU) Libraries used gift donations to recover from their 1997 flood disaster, which is thor-

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oughly discussed in the Library Disaster Planning and Recovery Handbook (Alire 2000). CSU initiated a massive gift solicitation following numerous offers of gifts-in-kind to replace their damaged material, which resulted in 100,000 exact title match donations that put the material into circulation years earlier than if they had tried to replace the titles by conventional acquisition methods. This article emphasizes the importance of faculty liaisons in the academic community and the need for subject selectors for selecting titles not previously owned from the donated material (Rutstein 2000). Of course, Rutstein was discussing faculty liaisons. Librarians who were liaisons to the departments might have proved to be equally helpful. The role of the subject specialist also does not figure prominently in gift policies that concentrate on the issue of acquiring donations rather than on what should happen once the library owns the material. Policies and/or guidelines for selection of gift books facilitate and add a measure of uniformity to the process. However, the role of the subject specialist is more important than mere selection of the materials once donated. The liaison/subject specialists are responsible for maintaining good relationships with departments, faculty members, and the local community. As relationships develop, the library becomes an integral part of the individuals information network and the library will be thought of first in decisions concerning the disposition of personal or departmental book and serial collections. This article first provides a brief overview of trends in gifts and donations to libraries using citations from the database Library Literature and Information Science (LLIS) from 1995 to August 2002. It then describes how the need for new gift selection/processing guidelines arose at Texas A&M University Libraries and discusses how effective liaison librarians have added value to the library collection via gifts. Finally, general guidelines for processing gifts of serials and monographs, developed to assist new subject specialists, are presented. LITERATURE TRENDS POINT TO IMPORTANCE OF GIFTS A literature review on the topic of gifts was conducted to locate existing general gift selection guidelines with a title-by-title focus or to look at the subject specialists role in the gift procedure. Admittedly, content selection should be the same as for any added material. But gift books and serials, especially older ones, have additional factors to consider. Unfortunately, a search of the LLIS database failed to produce any cita-

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tions concerning the subject specialists role in the gifts procedure. Most articles discussed fundraising, specific gifts, or grant writing without following the gift items through the process of integration into the library collection. However, this initial literature search for policies and procedures for collection development with respect to gifts illustrated a few interesting trends from 1995 to the present, and a more detailed analysis might prove interesting from a historical viewpoint. Table 1 represents the evaluation of article citations found in the LLIS database doing a very broad search using the truncated term gift. The articles were categorized into the following topics: fundraising, which includes grant writing; the discussion of specific collections that were donated to libraries; very large gifts usually monetary, grants, trusts, etc.; gifts involving electronic, digital or networked resources; general discussion of gifts; and citations that were false hits, which are usually publishers discussing gift giving. Table 2 shows the type of library that is discussed in each of the articles when it was possible to determine. The first very noticeable trend is that methodology articles (General Discussions in Table 1) are rare, while numbers of articles discussing gifts of specific collections and large contributions have been consistently high (see Table 1). The many articles discussing or announcing large gifts was expected. It is always great to announce very large or important additions to a library and, hopefully, this trend will continue. From this broad analysis, it is also possible to see that libraries received donations or funds that were to assist with the implementation of the rapidly expanding electronic resources in the mid 1990s, with articles focusing on electronic resources reaching a peak in 1996. Table 2
TABLE 1. Focus of Gift Articles Found in the Database Library Literature
Year Fundraising Specific Collections 25 44 21 21 31 15 8 2 Large contributions 15 5 1 3 6 15 28 6 Network Electronic Digital 14 28 3 12 5 3 4 0 General Discussions 7 6 6 9 8 5 10 3 Not gifts to libraries (false hits) 11 14 11 11 12 17 15 4

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002*

20 9 9 12 8 14 10 2

*covers only the first seven months of 2002

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COLLECTION MANAGEMENT TABLE 2. Articles Describing Gifts to Various Types of Libraries

Year 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002* Public Libraries 16 19 14 13 16 15 10 5 School Libraries 7 5 0 4 10 5 12 3 Library of Congress 8 11 6 11 13 7 11 1 Bill Gates Microsoft 2 13 5 5 3 1 5 3 Academic Libraries 10 4 0 3 5 15 7 0 State Libraries 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

*covers only the first seven months of 2002

shows that this was a time when Bill Gates and/or Microsoft was making large contributions to school and public libraries. In fact, Gates donated such a large amount to so many libraries that he has generally been compared to Andrew Carnegie (Martin 1997). Articles in the past two years concerning Gates or the Gates Foundation focus on grants to libraries in countries other than the United States. If the number of articles can be equated with importance, fundraising was important through the 1990s, as would be expected with the inflation of serial costs and attempts to add electronic resources. Many of these articles describe fundraising efforts that worked or present guidelines for fundraising initiatives. However, the majority of the articles discuss gifts with respect to public and school libraries, and articles related to gifts in academic libraries are discussed the least. Unfortunately, no articles discuss guidelines or policies for integrating gift books into a collection or the role of the subject specialist. DEPARTMENTAL RESTRUCTURING NECESSITATES PROCEDURE CHANGES Texas A&M University had its beginnings in 1876 as the Texas Agriculture and Mechanical College. But, in the past 126 years, has become one of the nations largest land, sea, and space grant universities with the campus including 5,200 acres, a billion dollar physical plant, and an airport. The library system has also expanded to meet the needs of the academic community. Today, the Sterling C. Evans Library is the cen-

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tral library on campus including the original six-story building along with the older Cushing Memorial library, now the archives, and the Evans Annex, a recent six-story addition connected to the Evans Library. There are three relatively smaller satellite libraries with highly specialized collections: the West Campus Library, focusing on business and agriculture; the Medial Sciences Library supporting the Health Science Center and the College of Veterinary Medicine; and the Policy Sciences and Economics Library located in the George Bush School of Government and Public Services. The libraries holdings consist of more than 2.7 million volumes, 4.9 million microform units, 37,034 serial titles, and approximately 170,000 maps and ranks in the top ten of ARL libraries for expenditures in electronic resources. The Texas A&M University Libraries receive gifts and donations in a variety of forms and has a general gifts policy in place which includes the standard issues of dealing with physically moving the collection, the disposition of items in a collection, acknowledgment, etc. Historically, the Texas A&M University Libraries have been fortunate with both goodwill and support from students, alumni, and faculty. However, recent restructuring of library departments and personnel brought the gift procedures to the forefront and revealed an expanded category of potential donorsthe faculty and departments of the University. The departmental restructuring included the development of a tiered model of reference services with the top level consisting of subject specialists (Coleman, Hambric, and Fos 1997). The reference librarians were assigned areas of subject responsibilities according to existing expertise and/or interest, and additional subject specialists were hired to fill in areas where expertise was lacking. The new reference/subject specialist model, with thirty faculty librarians, was designed to increase and customize service to each department, program, institute, and extension service of the campus, which has a student population of about 44,000. The subject specialists duties are eclectic including reference, research consultation, bibliographic instruction, collection development, and liaison to assigned departments. As liaisons, the subject specialists maintain active lines of communications with faculty members and students according to the wishes of the department. Subject specialists maintain additional communication lines on campus by working with student organizations, attending guest lectures in departments, attending or participating in conferences or symposia hosted by departments, providing bibliographic instruction in the departments, and working with the coordinators of departmental working collections.

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The library is thought of often due to this outreach, and faculty members who may not have had contact with the library, other than as users, now have frequent contact with a librarian who is personally responsible for their information needs. The subject specialists are now part of the departmental teams and work together to find creative solutions to acquire materials. Prior to the restructuring at the A&M libraries, all facets of gift evaluation were the responsibility of the Collection Development Department, and the evaluation of all material was left to the discretion of the Gifts Unit. The Gifts Unit had total responsibility for all gifts including acceptance, transportation, storage, and selection and the associated liaison work, until reorganization shifted the responsibility of selection to the subject-specialist reference librarians. Many of the subject librarians were formerly reference librarians and the new subject-specialist librarians, some directly out of library school, had little or no experience in their new areas of responsibility. The original gift policy did not help librarians who had never worked with donated books due to a lack of guidelines for evaluating gift titles with respect to their physical condition and format. The need for informal guidelines and a revision of the Gift Unit workflow to accommodate the new reference model and new building was first recognized when a large gift was given to a humanities subject specialist for evaluation. The established methods of the Gifts Unit, which worked well for the long-time members of the unit, were inefficient for the subject specialists who had limited responsibilities for gift material. This first large gift after department restructuring was daunting due to its size and recurring nature: approximately 70 to 130 boxes of materials, including serial and monograph collections which were to be donated yearly to the Library. Due to the complexity of this donation and its unique character, a decision was made to treat this specific gift as if it were acquired via normal purchasing channels. However, a reaffirmation of the need for a gift evaluation policy occurred when a science/engineering subject specialist was asked to evaluate the collection of a departmental library that was being closed for space considerations. The initial consultation with the department faculty revealed that all of the items had to be removed in four days or they would be disposed. With the time constraints, a very rough evaluation/selection was done as the material was packed, discarding only those items that clearly were not to be included such as personal papers and material in very poor condition. On the fourth day, 144 boxes were

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moved to the gifts unit to be processed into the Texas A&M University Library collection. After the donation of the two relatively large collections, it was decided that an informal guideline for gift evaluation and selection for the library collection was needed. The guideline was intended to provide the new subject specialists with both a written guide for the evaluation of serials and monographs in their fields and supporting documentation for liaison work with the academic departments and/or donors when describing how the gift process works. The Gifts Unit also modified their procedures to accommodate the subject specialists needs. GIFTS VIA THE SUBJECT SPECIALISTS An added benefit of having subject specialists acting as liaisons and reference specialists in a central university library is that the librarian responsible for collection development has a knowledge of the collection and develops personal relationships with students and faculty members. The outreach to departments provides a personalized service and the subject specialists are contacted regularly for information needs which opens the door for cooperative means of collection development and gifts/donations. The new paradigm of the specialist librarian working closely with faculty members and assuming personal responsibility for integrating books highly valued by the faculty has added important titles to the collection. As individual working relationships developed between the subject specialists and faculty members, private and departmental collections were donated to the library. The library offered to integrate departmental working collections, or parts of it, into the library collection thereby saving the material for the department while extending access to the university community as a whole. Donations by faculty members were the result of departments weeding or dismantling their departmental libraries and reading rooms, faculty members retiring and donating their working collections, and researchers editing bibliographies seeking a safe home for the many volumes that were evaluated during the course of their work. Gifts, donations, and cooperative ventures range in size. During the first year it was common to see a chemistry professor at the reference desk asking to see his subject specialist because he had an armful of books that he wanted to donate to the library. At first, he would speak only to his subject specialist; but, within a year, he trusted the public service workers enough to tell them to give the books to the subject spe-

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cialist to add to the collection. At the other extreme, an engineering subject specialist worked with the Texas A&M University College of Engineering and the IEEEs University Partnership Program to increase the enrollment in the local student IEEE group. IEEE presented Texas A&M University Libraries with a 10 percent rebate (over $8,000) for the subscription to their Electronic Library. The money was then used to purchase engineering related monographs. Subject specialists have completed serials, primarily proceedings and journals, by asking their faculty members if they had extra copies. Many subject-specific listservs also announce freebies that the subject specialists request, which can include monographs, journal backfiles, proceedings, maps, theses/dissertations, etc. One subject specialist conducted a survey of two departments who share a sizable working collection and found that the technical reports were underutilized. Furthermore, the faculty and students wanted the reports integrated into the Library collection where the online catalog would allow them to identify these resources. One might assume that only those departments that have been historically wedded to books for research would be the major contributors: namely, History and English departments. But, the Science and Engineering departments have also consistently thought of the library and have turned into major donors. The Petroleum Engineering, Geology, Oceanography, Chemistry, Meteorology, and Ocean Engineering departments have donated considerable numbers of books, reports, and journals to the library. Less frequently, science organizations and individuals with an interest in a specific scientific topic locate and contact subject specialists via the library web page and offer to donate new books that, once in the collection, are frequently used. Another successful source of book donations that has occurred is subject specialists suggesting that the departmental faculty act as advocates for the library. For example, the Mechanical Engineering Department set up an agreement with a major scientific press to have them donate all of the faculty authored books that were not included in the library collection, which totaled in the hundreds, while the Womens Studies Department worked with prominent alumni to set up a fund to support the acquisition of women studies materials in the library. GIFT POLICY AT TEXAS A&M A few academic libraries include a small section in their marketing brochures that list generally unwanted materials, such as outdated textbooks, popular magazines, mass market paperbacks, U.S. Government

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publications, scholarly journals which duplicate holdings, and materials in poor condition (Denning 1999). Some, like Northwestern University Library (http://www.library.northwestern.edu/gifts/), include such lists in their library gift unit web pages. However, the general gifts policy at Texas A&M includes only specifications for the donation and general disposition of gifts aimed at donors not located on the campusalumni and others who are not otherwise affiliated with the university. Subject specialists now have the responsibility for the selection of material originating as gifts, which includes many factors that the technical services department had previously contended with such as condition and binding. The following sections describe factors to consider when selecting gift material for a library collection and a flow pattern that works for Texas A&M University Libraries. One might consider many of the factors to be only common sense. However, those newly initiated into gift selection may overlook the obvious. It is always better, when facing a new task, to be able to refer to written guidelines or suggestions. GIFT SELECTION PROCESSING Procedures for the Gifts Unit were modified for the new reference model and subject specialists worked with the gifts officer to develop a flow of material that would work for both units. The Gifts Units standard guideline for gifts processing focuses on the acceptance of the gift and processing issues such as bookplates and placing the donors name in the online catalog record. The following brief outline describes the workflow performed before the subject specialist makes decisions concerning individual titles. The staff of the Gifts Unit performs the work outlined below. General Gift Processing Procedure 1. Boxes are opened and materials displayed on shelves. 2. General de-selection of materials obviously not to be included in the library collection such as personal papers and heavily damaged items. 3. The library catalog is searched to determine if the library owns a copy of the title or various editions. 4. Books are separated on shelves between: a. originals (not owned by the library) and, b. duplicates which include a circulation record.

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5. Special bookplates are inserted per donor agreements. 6. Any special instructions are placed in the books. 7. Books are placed on book trucks and sent to approval shelves for one month for selector review. 8. Titles not selected are returned to the Gifts Unit where the Director of Collection Management completes a final review to ensure that valuable titles were not overlooked. 9. If there is a question about a title that was not selected for the collection, the subject specialist is contacted to re-examine the piece. Large and/or Subject Specific Collection Processing The general procedure outlined above is used for eclectic or small collections that are donated to the library. However, the Sterling C. Evans Library has been fortunate in receiving many large donations of materials that are fairly subject specific and require the expertise of the subject specialist from the initial acceptance of the gift to individual title selection. It is also becoming more common to have donors contact the library a few days before their collection must be removed. Therefore, it is important for the subject selectors to have a great working knowledge of the materials in their collection and the needs of their patrons in order to make very fast decisions about what to accept. With the time factors involved, it is also important to be able to free the selector from the library with very short notice. Accepting the Donation The gifts librarians complete the initial interviews with the donors. The gifts librarians discuss the general gift policy with the donor. The gifts librarians schedule evaluation/pick-up dates with the donor and arrange for the appropriate vehicles. The subject specialists and gifts librarians visit the donor and evaluate the gift. Many times the evaluation is done on the day the material is picked-up due to distance/time considerations. Verifying the Status of a Title The staff of the Gifts Unit determines whether the library owns copies of the materials donated according to the following procedure,

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which allows the subject specialists to very quickly decide whether or not to add a title to the collection. The books are placed on shelves and searched in the library catalog. Titles already in the library collection are given a flag with their call number, edition, and number of times checked out. New titles are given a flag with a zero. The books are placed on shelves in the Gifts Unit separated into social science/humanities and science/engineering sections. Ideally the titles would be arranged alphabetically by title to group multiple copies of a single title and keep all of the items of a serial together. With very large collections this may not be possible due to space considerations. Monograph Selection The decision to add a monographic title should loosely follow guidelines for collection development for relevancy. In general damaged books are not added to the collection. However, many times a title that has value to research is rare and should be added with reasonable damage, or if extremely rare, treated and repaired. A search of OCLC can provide an idea of the scarcity of the title. The following materials that are generally not added to the collection: Added copies. In general, there should be no more that three circulating copies. Individual decisions should be made based on the circulation record. Accompanying material must have the primary piece (e.g., Study guides, tracts, manuals, computer disks, etc). Outdated technology manuals, guides, computer handbooks, etc., (in general, pieces should have recent (within 3 years) publication dates) Damaged material Conference and Seminar handouts, booklets, etc. Preprints and reprints Law, statute and case books Textbooks and workbooks more than 5 years old Mass market general fiction (exceptions: western and science fiction material for the special collections) Cliff/Monarch Notes Duplicate copies of indices

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Test Prep Materials (e.g., LSAT, GRE, MCAT, SAT, GNE, TOEFL, Civil Service Exams, etc.) Materials which are photocopies Drafts of material Readers Digest Condensed Books Commercial travel guides, catalogs, etc. However, there are additional issues to consider with a gift monograph based on condition, which can significantly add to the cost of adding the material: Mold, mildew, obvious water damage to binding and/or pages Brittle paper, or missing pages Insect damage Mutilated pages Broken spines, covers detached, or missing Excessively marked or underlined text Unbound or loose-leaf items

Serial Selection Serials present additional considerations for the searchers and the selectors. The searcher must thoroughly understand the cataloging of monographic serials, serial sets and government documents as well as the more normal journals serials, and the selector must make the decision of whether or not to keep small runs of a serial, have them bound, etc. The final decision to bind, hold, or even recycle will depend on the answer to two questions: 1. What kind of material is it (review, newsletter, bulletin, monographic series, journal, etc.)? Some types of materials are not included in the collection and some include only the current issues such as newsletters. 2. Does the library subscribe to, or own segments of the serial? If the library owns the serial or segments, will the individual gift items add to the collection?

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If the serial is widely used it may be possible to save the item as a replacement copy. If the library does not own the serial, are there enough sequential pieces to justify adding them to the collection? Is the serial indexed in a database, which can lead people to it? Often items of a monographic series, proceedings, or annuals can stand on their own. The items can be evaluated by the subject specialists as a monograph and then catalogued according to LC standards. In a perfect world, it would be sound practice with duplicate items to physically evaluate the piece in the collection and then replace it with the gift copy when the gift is in better condition. Departmental Cooperation It is always important to interact with the different departments of the library when gifts, especially large ones, arrive. The selection of gift material will certainly increase the load on technical services such as cataloging and binding. These departments should be notified of the large gift donations and the time line for the gift integration into the library should be thoroughly discussed. Storage and stacks space issues are also important considerations. Today, shelf space can be at a premium in libraries and space may be an important factor in the selection process of gifts. If serials are to be kept for replacement copies, it is imperative to first determine that there is sufficient space to hold the issues. It is also pertinent to notify the shelving supervisor when large runs of serials are to be integrated with the collection. It is often not a trivial exercise to place large serials or serial sets in the stacks and the logistics may require careful planning to not interrupt users at critical times in an academic library. Announcing the Arrival of the Material Finally, if the gift is large and noteworthy its arrival should be marketed. The subject selectors are in the position to notify individual departments when collections have been integrated and are ready for check out. This can be accomplished by notifying the faculty liaison, or via newsletters or departmental listservs. Unique or valuable collections can be announced to the entire library community through newspapers, or

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electronic notification methods by the library Public Relations Unit. Of course, for this type of collection, an article in a library journal is always a great way to let the world know that this unique collection exists. CONCLUSIONS Gift books can be very useful in supplementing the normal acquisition methods used in collection development. They can replace damaged titles, fill in serial runs and add out-of-print classics. The massive gift program initiated by CSU Libraries clearly demonstrated the value of gift material by replacing 100,000 exact-match titles following their 1997 flood disaster. Outreach to the library community by reference librarians who are now subject specialists can forge new avenues for gift donation from faculty members, departments, and external library patrons. However, the selection process with gift books is more complicated than normal content selection and can benefit from guidelines, formal or informal. Of course the guidelines should always be flexible and adaptable to any situation because one never knows what will be offered as gifts-in-kind.

REFERENCES
Alire, Camila (Ed.). (2000). Library Disaster Planning and Recovery Handbook. New York: Neal Schuman Publishers, Inc. Association of Research Libraries. (1999). SPEC Kit 241: The Gifts and Exchange Function in ARL Libraries. [Online] Available: http://www.arl.org/spec/241fly.html [September 2, 2002]. Burnam, Paul D. (1998). Private liberal arts colleges and the costs of scientific journals: A perennial dilemma. College and Research Libraries 59 (5): 406-420. Coleman, Vicki, Lynne Hambric and Dorothy Fos. (1997). Tiered reference services: A survey at Texas A&M University. The Reference Librarian 59: 25-35. Denning, Catherine. (1999). The Gifts and Exchange Function in ARL Libraries: Association of Research Libraries Spec Kit 241. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries Office of Leadership and Management Services. Diodato, Louise W. and Virgil P. Diodato. (1983). The use of gifts in a medium sized academic library. Collection Management 5 (1/2): 53-71. Martin, Patricia. (1997). Is Bill Gates the new Andrew Carnegie? American Libraries 28: 38.

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Mount, Ellis. (1989). Collection Management in Sci-Tech Libraries: An Introduction. Science & Technology Libraries 9(3): 3-23. Rutstein, Joel. (2000). The fine art of gift raising: An overview. In Library Disaster Planning and Recovery Handbook. Compiled by Camila Alire. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.: 385-398. White, Gary W. (1999). Academic subject specialist positions in the United States: A content analysis of announcements from 1990 through 1998. The Journal of Academic Librarianship 25(5): 372-82. Yocum, Patricia B. (1989). The precarious state of academic science library collections. Science & Technology Libraries 9(3): 37-46.

Received: 08/21/02 Peer-Reviewed: 08/23/02 Revised and Accepted: 09/03/02