Donations with strings attached: Experience of Academic Libraries in South-West Nigeria.

This study investigated the experience of academic libraries on handling of book donations and gifts with strings or conditions attached. This study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The study population consisted of eighteen (18) academic libraries from public and private universities in South-West, Nigeria. Purposive sampling techniques was adopted to select librarians who are in charge of Collection Development of their respective libraries. Descriptive statistics involving frequency and percentage distribution were used for data analysis. The findings of the study revealed that individuals 13(72.2%) are the major source of donations with strings attached and further revealed that 6(33.3%) indicated that the string attached by donors is mostly dictating where the donated materials should be stored or displayed. The study concludes that library managements should publish the library's policy on gifts and donations and also should not hesitate to reject donations that have stringent conditions attached that may be difficulty to abide by and accept donations that will not have strings attached in a bid to provide information to users but should always ensure good quality, recency and relevance of such materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]