Academic Library Fund-Raising: Organization, Process, and Politics

Library Trends, Wntr, 2000 by Susan K. Martin

Library development programs should take advantage of the emotional response to libraries and of the fact that, in many universities, there is a group of disaffected alumni--perhaps those classes that graduated during the Vietnam war era when the campus may have been in chaos or perhaps women who were among the first classes of coeducation in formerly male institutions. These alumni are now of an age to be ready to give something back to their university, but their experiences prevent them from identifying closely with a school, a department, or even the university as a whole. The library is often able to present itself as a positive force, and one that was a presence during those earlier years on campus.

There is not usually much that a librarian can do to persuade an academic dean or an athletic director to release one of his or her alumni to the library if the dean already has a relationship with the alumnus. The same holds true with parents; this author has had the experience of requesting a visit with parents who owned a nationally known bookstore--quite logical to try to attract these people to the library. However, the dean of the school attended by the child wished to retain access to those parents, and the library was never able to call on them.

Other techniques can be used to cull out of the large body of alumni and parents those people who might be encouraged to take an interest in the library. In those cases where several members of a single family attended the same institution, but usually majored in different areas, the library can represent the place on campus that is common to the experiences of all family members. Identifying alumni and parents whose occupational interests are related in some way or another to the activities of the library can be helpful: publishers, printers, authors, or people in some aspect of the information technologies industry may be persuaded to support the library. The development office's research department can derive information that relates to the publicly available interests of the university's alumni, parents, and friends. More interesting but much more difficult to acquire is information about people who collect books, manuscripts, and artwork; this is potentially a group rife with good prospects for the library--if the library can discover who they are.

Gifts in Kind

More than any other unit on campus, the library is likely to receive gifts in kind. Librarians are familiar with the phenomenon and with the irritation of receiving a collection of books that almost entirely duplicates what is already in the collection, of feeling the need to be nice to someone whose collection is really not of interest to the library but whose interests may be worth cultivating for prospective future gifts.

It is not unusual for a library's special collections to be built entirely through gifts in kind. Where there is a history of such gift acceptance, potential donors are likely to be aware of the library's willingness to accept gifts. It becomes easier for the library to build on success by identifying other book or manuscript collections for possible donation to the university.