My original posting to Michlib-l was: The Baldwin Public Library has a naming rights policy: http://baldwinlib.org/assets/PDFs/Library-Policies/Naming-Policy.pdf It provides no guidelines, however, on how much money should be donated for any given element of the building. For example: How much of a donation will provide naming rights for the entire library? How much of a donation will provide naming rights for a Youth Room or Teen Room or Reference Room or Local History Room or cafe or a meeting room or the story room within the Youth Room? How much of a donation will provide naming rights for a section of a room--e.g., the beginning-to-read section of the Youth Room or the Adult history section? If you allow a room or area to receive multiple donations, do you honor the multiple donors with a plaque instead of a name? (For example, "This patio was paid for with contributions from ...") In this case, do you charge each donor the same amount? Or do you accept different amounts and then list the donors by donation amount? If your library has such guidelines, I would very much appreciate hearing from you. Alternatively, if you have no formal guidelines, but have given out naming rights in the past, I would appreciate hearing what your practice has been. (For example, we had an $8 million building project. Somebody donated $1 million. We named the library after them.) I realize that donation amounts will vary by the type of library. Since a large library will have a larger and more expensive Youth Room, the naming rights for that room would probably be commensurately larger. So it would be helpful if you could provide some indication of the size of your building. The responses I received are below: One library responded: "I believe that a library should not be named after an individual or company unless that donor has paid more than half of the construction cost for the building. In regards to naming rooms, donors should pay for the square foot cost of the room in order to have the room named after them." Two libraries noted that they named their buildings about donors who gave under 20% of the construction cost. One library noted that the naming of a library or part of a library is sometimes made for other than monetary reasons. One library noted that they have a "wall of honor" to honor long-time volunteers (over 2,500 hours) and donors of over $3,000. Another library said that it named one department for 25% of the cost of the renovation of that department, and a room in that department for 15% of the total project cost. Smaller donations going toward the building renovation will be acknowledged on plaques. The Muskegon Public Schools' policy on naming buildings is as follows: *The Board of Education reserve the right to designate and/or establish the names of all buildings, grounds, recreational facilities, playgrounds, rooms within a building, or parts thereof of any and all properties held by Muskegon Public Schools. Furthermore, the Board reserves the right to commemorate, memorialize, recognize, and otherwise honor any individual by the conferring of an individual's name to a facility or any part thereof.* * It shall be the policy of the Board to defer naming any facility or part thereof after any currently employed employee or currently-serving elected official until such time as the individual has not such current status with the district.* Orion Township has a nice naming policy, complete with formulas(!): http://orionlibrary.org/documents/policy-manual.pdf#page=47 Thanks to everyone who got back to me on this issue. Doug -- Doug Koschik Director Baldwin Public Library 300 W. Merrill St. Birmingham, MI 48009 E-mail: doug.koschik@baldwinlib.org Telephone: 248-554-4681 Fax: 248-647-6393