The EUI Library welcomes donations of materials in formats, subject areas and languages relevant to the study and research done at the EUI.
Donated materials are evaluated by Information Specialists and included in the collection where deemed to be of quality and relevant to the research and teaching requirements of EUI scholars. They can be included in the collections, exchanged with other libraries or given away.
The vast majority of older works of relevance to the Department’s research have already been requested by Faculty members and acquired by the Library. All holdings are indexed in the Library catalogue.
Due to shelving-space constraints, the Library does not accept:
- duplicates, unless there is heavy course demand paper
- versions of books already available in electronic version, or for which there is a more recent edition in the collection
- individual or partial runs of journals.
The Library does not advise on monetary value of donations, or of materials that might be candidates for donation.
How to donate a book to the Library
Before offering to donate books, donors are asked to send an email to the appropriate
Library Information Specialist. Please note: It is important that no books be dropped off at the Library without prior contact.
When donated books are included in the collections, the name of the donor (persons or institutions) is inscribed in the book. Donors are invited to accompany their gift with contact information and are also welcome to insert their own bookplates.
Large book donations: the Library encourages donors to provide a description of the material, preferably accompanied by a list of titles. In the absence of such documentation, the Library may require on-site evaluation of the collection by Library staff.
Private collections: Information Specialists evaluate the quality and relevance of works offered. In some cases, the Library may recommend donors to contact the Historical Archives of the European Union so that works may be considered for the Salviati reference library.
Archival material: prospective donors are invited to directly contact the Director of the Historical Archives of the European Union at the European University Institute.
Book donations are dealt with in three different ways:
Open Access collections: The titles most relevant to EUI academic interests are included in the open-access collections immediately available to our users on a par with material that the Library purchases.
Off-site storage: Among the gifts the Library receives there are many books that are considered of potential interest to our present or future user population but which are not necessarily a priority in terms of our limited resources of staff-time and shelving space. They are stored off-site.
Discarded material: The Library reserves the right to dispose of donations to EUI members or to other libraries. Books considered irrelevant for the work of the EUI are put on shelves at the Library entrance with the invitation to users to serve themselves. After a certain period the remaining items are disposed of.
Page last updated on 10 April 2025