Donate Your Books to the Library and Get a Tax Deduction

Have you considered donating books you are no longer using to NU's Library?

Not only can you help the Library, but you can also deduct the books as a charitable donation.

How does this work?

Bring your books to the Library and leave them with a reference librarian. Make sure you include a note with your name and address. Or if you prefer, we can come and get the books. Contact Dave Schoen at mailto:schoen@niagara.eduto arrange a pickup.

We will send you a letter acknowledging the gift. For a small number of books, the letter will list the actual titles. For larger donations, we can only indicate the total number of books that were donated. (So for tax purposes, you might want to create list of titles for yourself. Then give us that list with the donation. We will stamp it as received and mail it back to you.)

We can't provide a value for your donation, but you can take a look at http://www.alibris.com to see what used copies of books are selling for, or, talk to your tax accountant about valuing donated books. The IRS also provides guidance on determining fair market value of property donations:

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p561/index.html
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p561/index.html

What does the Library do With Your Donation?

We add relevant materials to the the collection, of course. Materials we already own are sold in our used book sale, so students have access to inexpensive books. For books that don't sell well locally, we try to sell them to various dealers we are in contact with. The money goes into a fund that is typically used for improving the Library: for example, new furniture and computer upgrades for patron computers.

Thanks for your consideration.