Gifts and Donations

From medieval manuscripts to our modern literary archives, the Library's collections have always been enriched by the generosity of donors.

Most of the core resources we provide for teaching and research today are accessed digitally. Where we continue to grow our physical collections, our priority is rare and unique material that is of long-term value to the University. In order to make best use of our space and resources, we are not able to accept all material offered to us.

We are interested in potential donations that

• help make our collections more diverse and inclusive
• are rare or of historical significance
• enhance our University Archives, including records of student activity
• support or enhance our existing Special Collections

We regret that we are unable to accept

• material that does not support our teaching and research needs
• duplicates of existing stock
• out-of-date editions of textbooks
• collections that we think would be better offered to another institution
• items or collections that we are unable to preserve, store, and make accessible due to constraints on space and resources, 

If you have documents, books published before 1850, or other rare and unique material that you would like to offer us please find out more about what we collect and then contact Special Collections and a member of the team will be happy to help.

Any other gift and donation enquiries should be sent to librarians@le.ac.uk. 

Any book donations are accepted on the understanding that they become the property of the University of Leicester and cannot be returned. Books gifted will not necessarily be retained permanently by the Library if they no longer meet the collection development strategy.

Donations of material published prior to 1850 or other rare material are received on the basis of the University Archives selection policy and are governed by the Archives collections management policy and by individual agreement.