Gifts and Donations Policy

The Davidson County Public Library System (DCPL) encourages the interest and involvement of citizens and organizations through bequests, trusts, and donations of monetary or other tangible assets for library purposes.

In general, the Davidson County Public Library System welcomes gifts of money, books and other materials (e.g., magazines, DVDs, CDs), equipment, works of art, documents, photographs, or property of any kind which promotes the mission of the library.  The Davidson County Public Library System reserves the right to refuse any gift that the Library Director and/or the Board of Library Trustees deem to be not in the best interest of the library.

  • NO RESTRICTIONS ON GIFTS - If a gift is accepted by DCPL, the gift shall be final with no restrictions on the library’s ownership, possession, use, or disposition of the gift.
  • TAX DEDUCTIONS/APPRAISALS - Income tax regulations leave the determination of the gift’s monetary value to the donor.   Donors wishing to have an appraisal of their gifts for income tax purposes must do so prior to donation.  A gift agreement form may be obtained for the donor’s tax records at their request.
  • WILL ITEMS BE ADDED TO CURRENT COLLECTION?   Any gifted items may be processed and added to the DCPL collection if they fall within the guidelines of the collection development policy.  These items can be used to replace worn library copies, sent to other library branches in the DCPL system, or sold to help purchase needed items.
    • Examples of materials generally not to be taken as donations include: items either outdated or in poor physical condition, textbooks, old encyclopedias, old medical books, and magazines older than five (5) years.

Memorial/Honor Gifts

The Davidson County Public Library System (DCPL) welcomes monetary gifts for purchase of materials for the collections given in recognition or memory of individuals or organizations.  Honor or memorial gifts should be made payable to the Davidson County Public Library.

Some information is required by the donor to honor and recognize their specified individual within the library collection.  This includes the name of the donor, the name of those being honored, the names and addresses of the friend(s) or relative(s) to be notified of the donation (optional - no more than four (4) such notifications per item), type of material requested, and the subject or title preferences designated.  If the donor does not indicate a particular type of material or subject/title preference, the funds will be used to purchased needed materials for the library.