Monetary Donations

The generosity of library friends and supporters plays a vital role in building Meriam Library's collections, programs and services. If you would like to contribute to the library, you may direct your gift to a specific program, such as new technology, Special Collections, or a particular academic area of the collection. Or, you may prefer to give an unrestricted gift to be used where the needs are greatest.

Make a donation now

Past monetary gifts have supported:

  • Book purchases. A bookplate will be placed in the front of the book with your name or the name of someone you would like to remember or honor.
  • Purchase of unique historical photos, maps or manuscript materials for Special Collections.
  • Special projects to preserve and repair unique historical maps and photographs and to save fragile and rare books.
  • Scanning projects to create digital images that can be viewed online from anywhere at any time by students and researchers.
  • Exhibits that highlight the history of Northeastern California.

In-Kind Donations of Books or Other Materials

We currently are NOT able to accept In-Kind Donations. Please check back later.

Potential donations of material about the history of Northeastern California will be forwarded to the Special Collections Department. Potential donations of scholarly or general books will be considered using the donation guidelines below. The Library must be selective about accepting book donations due to space limitations, relevance to the curriculum and the costs of sorting and processing materials.

Please note that Meriam Library is unable to provide a valuation of gifts. Appraisals, if desired, must be conducted by a third party prior to the delivery of the gift. Book appraisers may be identified in the Yellow Pages under Book Dealers – Used & Rare.

Donation Guidelines

Gift materials are reviewed for retention based on criteria such as subject, age, condition, language, format and whether they duplicate current holdings.

Periodical or journal issues that are less than 15 years old may be useful in extended runs of 10 years or more. Personal gift subscriptions when the donor wants to read the issue first before sending to the library will not be accepted.

The library may decline to accept any materials that are not appropriate for the collections. All donated items become the permanent property of Chico State University, and the library assumes the responsibility of determining the retention, placement within the collection, cataloging treatment, and any other considerations relating to the use and disposition of the materials.

The following categories of material are usually not accepted:

  • Textbooks
  • Most mass-market paperbacks
  • Popular magazines (i.e. National Geographic, Smithsonian, etc.)
  • Scattered issues, incomplete volumes, or short runs of magazines or journals
  • U.S. government publications
  • Books and scholarly journals which duplicate our holdings
  • Materials in poor condition or exhibiting signs of mold or mildew
  • Material that contains highlighting, underlining, or annotations (unless annotations are of significant scholarly value)
  • Material in outmoded formats (8-track tapes, 5.25-inch computer disks, LPs, Betamax)
  • Electronic materials in obsolete formats
  • Materials which might cause the library to be liable for copyright infringement (i.e., illegally copied audio and video recordings.)

Donations that are accepted but not added to the collections will be sold to support library collections, sent to a non-profit corporation that provides books to libraries at low cost or recycled with a recognized recycler.