Donating Books or Periodicals

Gifts of scholarly books and runs of periodicals have contributed significantly to the Health
Sciences Library’s reputation as a research library. We welcome any inquiries regarding
potential donations that support the teaching, learning and research activities of the Faculty of
Health Sciences. We greatly appreciate your help in building our collections.

Review and Consideration

Each item will receive careful consideration for acceptance into the collection. Acceptance is at
the discretion of the librarians.

Gifts and Donations Left at the Service Desk

Please do not leave donations at the Service Desk without first arranging this with the
Collections Team (hslcoll@mcmaster.ca). Your donation might get lost or discarded.

Materials the library is interested in collecting:

• Recent publications of highly sought-after materials in health-related subjects
• Classic or seminal works in health-related fields
• Biographies of health professionals in Canada, Britain, and the United States
• Histories of specialties and hospitals
• Material older than 1920, published in Canada, Britain, and the United States
• Ephemera in health-related subjects/li>
• Personal papers or organizational records in health-related fields

Materials the library cannot accept as donations:

• Material which does not support the research or educational programs of the Faculty of
  Health Sciences
• Material published before 1985, unless of research value
• Duplicates, unless they are copies of high-use, recently published items
• Material in poor condition, unless considered rare or valuable
• Superseded editions of academic texts
• Material published in languages other than English or French
• Newspapers
• Photocopies
• Popular paperbacks
• Single issues of journals unless they fill a gap within the Health Sciences Library’s
  collection
• Long playing records, audiotapes
• Large collections physically located outside of Ontario unless they are very valuable
• Collections of material from which we only want a few items

Donated material may be discarded at the discretion of the library