How to donate books to public libraries?

Leisure and Cultural Services Department

Apart from library materials acquisition, the Hong Kong Public Libraries (HKPL) welcomes book materials donations from individuals and organizations to enrich the collection.

To make the best use of resources and to achieve the goal of enriching library collections through book materials donations, the HKPL focuses on collecting materials related to the study of Hong Kong and materials for enhancing the reference collections. Under normal circumstances, the HKPL will not accept donations of the following materials :

fiction and junior books;
titles already in stock of HKPL;
school textbooks and student workbooks;
materials that are in poor physical condition (with the exception of rare books);
outdated books on the subject of science, technology, business, finance, law ,travel guides and computer science.

Donation procedure is as follows -

Form

HKPL Donation Record (PDF file)

Submission Method

Complete the Donation Record Form and submit it together with the materials, or a sample copy of each material, if there are multiple copies, to any libraries. Location and opening hours of the libraries are all listed in the HKPL website.

Processing Procedure

Once the materials are donated to HKPL, they will be handled in accordance with the donation policy and procedures. All accepted donations should meet the collection development policy and require approval of the Collection Development Meeting.
HKPL reserves the right to make the final decision on their retention, allocation, processing and disposal.
Unless prior agreement is made, donated items not accepted would not be returned to the donors.

Last update: 14 May 2021

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