Donating items to us

You can hand your donations in at any library but some donations may not be accepted. Contact the library you are going to before taking your items in.

The process of adding items to library stock can be significant in terms of staff time. Our libraries have limited shelf-space; follow the guidelines below:

• books should be less than 5 years old and in nearly new condition. Some libraries do have areas of special interest and may consider older material.
• we cannot guarantee that an item will stay at a particular location
• we cannot guarantee that donated items will be put into stock as they are subject to the same guidelines as existing library stock
• any donations not added to stock may be sold within the library and the profits used for library income generation
• we are unable to inform donors of the usage patterns of items added to stock
• offers of bulk donations will be referred to a senior member of staff
• we cannot return unwanted donations to the donor

We regret that we do not accept books that are self-published. Self-publication is defined as being where an author(s) has sole control of the content without the collaboration of an established publisher to provide editorial review. Libraries are reliant on publishers to undertake various forms of editorial control that eliminate factual error, potential libellous content and material that may be viewed as counter to law. Editorial processes also ensure that the correct level of grammar, language, description etc which are used in a book is appropriate and relevant for the age level to which the book aimed at.Librarians are not able to appraise each and every book in this detail, and are not necessarily qualified to do so in matters of law.

No judgement on the quality of an un-published or self-published book is either implied or should be inferred by our position. It is recognised that self-published works may have equal merit, meet or exceed the quality of those published through established channels;however the reputational risk to the library service of stocking un-published or self-published works exceeds this potential loss.