The British Library welcomes offers of donations for its collections, in digital and physical form. Please check our catalogues and contact us before you send any material.

All offers are assessed according to how well a potential donation would fit with our collecting approach, as well as other factors like the costs of processing, conservation and long-term storage. Occasionally this will mean that we decline offers of material that it does not hold.

If you want donate items to us, please consult our catalogues first. This will reduce the chances of offering the Library items already in the collections.

Please contact donations@bl.uk before sending any material to the Library, giving details of the items you would like to donate, a description of their physical condition, and a statement making it clear that you own them. You can also use this email address for other queries related to potential donations. If items are accepted for our collection, delivery costs will need to be covered by the donor.

Donations may not be accepted if you wish to place any restrictions on their use or disposal. It is Library policy that donations are integrated into the existing collections, and are subject to the same conditions of use as those collections, including retention, location, use and disposal. Items that are deemed not suitable for inclusion in the collection are not kept by the Library.

Legal deposit

If you are a UK or Irish publisher, including small presses and self-publishers, your publications are not counted as 'donations' but as legal deposit. There is a different approach to these.