Recently Asked Questions

A town municipal public library has been told by the town that the library cannot have a donate to the library button on the library's website. The library hosts its own website, and the donations would go into a library checking account.

The town feels that the library will be seen as fundraising. Is there a comptroller's opinion or NYS Law that states municipal town libraries (or school district or special district) libraries cannot ask for donations on its website?

Thanks

Can we use the email addresses of our patrons from our ILS patron database to send a donation request for our association library's annual fundraising drive? We would exclude requests to minor patrons.

Our museum has an item on long-term loan that is potentially pretty valuable--a 200-yr old document.

We no longer wish to have this item in our custody unless it is gifted to us outright, and no longer on loan.

The gentleman who loaned it to us lives out of state and is considering donating the item to us, but is currently consulting with his attorneys to decide if he should gift the item to us (a non-profit museum) for tax deduction benefits or ask us to return it to sell the item elsewhere.

He is basing this decision on appraisals done by a company that has not seen the object in question in person for nearly 20 years (the length of time it has been on loan to us), and only has photographs to go by. These appraisals were paid for by the potential donor.

Our museum does not do appraisals, nor can we afford one of our own, so we have no way of knowing if the item is worth what he says it is. Is there any potential legal ramification to us if we decide to accept the item into our collection as a donation with the value he has listed (around $20,000)- i.e. in a situation like a tax audit?

We are beginning our long-range planning process and are asking patrons to fill out a community survey to assess what the community wants to see in the library now and in the future. Thinking it was a good idea to raffle off gift cards to encourage participation, I gave my board trustees a letter requesting a donation of gift cards. Another director told me I'm not supposed to have the board ask for donations in any form. This is something our Friends group should do. Please advise. Thanks in advance!

We are a school district public library planning a capital project. The question is whether or not the project has to be approved by a public vote. We have been given money from our assemblyman towards the cost of the construction of one item in the plan. The remainder of the funds will be from the Friends of the Library, a foundation that is raising money in memory of two people and other private donations. We are not asking for tax dollars for the project.