My 2 cents worth (before we run out!):

I think it’s good that you have a policy. You can show it to him if he has questions. You can say something like, “IAs a matter of policy, the library evaluates all donated materials to determine  if it fits the specified criteria before adding it to the collection—as we have limited space.” You don’t have to say that YOU are the one who found the book lacking. You can also say, “Unfortunately it did not meet the specified criteria. If you want we can put it in our book sale.” Saying it’s “the library” kind of lets you off the hook and maybe the author feels ok with it too.

Good luck!

Rebecca Grai

Head of Circulation

Strosacker Library

Northwood University

4000 Whiting Drive

Midland, MI 48640

Office: 989.837.4333

grai@northwood.edu

From: Michelle Parker via Michlib-l <michlib-l@liblists.org>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2026 11:25 AM
To: michlib-l@liblists.org
Subject: [Michlib-l] Re: Self-Published Book Question

When items are a donation I make sure to give the whole "if we don't put it in our collection is it alright if we put it in the bookvsale?" but was thrown by him coming in in person (I hadn't met him before) with his own book and forgot to say that.

On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 10:46 AM Michelle Parker <northadamslibrarian2@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All,

What do you do with books local authors drop off that may be of questionable quality? There's a local author who has dropped off their book a couple times to put in our collection, but it looks very poorly put together and I read a little and it seems like there was no editor. 

I looked over our Collection Development Policy and one of the criteria is "effectiveness of the format in conveying information" (which feels like it falls short on). They had dropped off two copies last time that just went in our book sale, but they came in again and dropped off another and I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to be like: "sorry, your book is poorly formatted and doesn't meet our collection development criteria"...

Any suggestions on how to let them down gently?

Thank you for your help!

Michelle Parker

Librarian

North Adams Community Memorial Library

517-287-4426

Library Website

Library Facebook

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Michelle Parker

Librarian

North Adams Community Memorial Library

517-287-4426

Library Website

Library Facebook