Pierce Library is unable to provide appraisals of the monetary value of materials offered as gifts, brought in for identification, or submitted for any other purpose.
The Internal Revenue Service regards libraries and museums as interested parties, and appraisals by them for gifts that they receive are subject to question. This resulted because some libraries and museums in the past were tempted to compete for gifts by providing high appraisals. Consequently, the Association of College and Research Libraries recommends the following "to protect both its donors and itself, the library, as an interested party, ordinarily should not appraise gifts made to it."
When an appraisal is used for tax and insurance purposes, an appraiser must be prepared to defend his or her appraisal in court. This requires an expert knowledge of prices from appraisers who have extensive collections of price guides and related bibliographies not usually found in libraries. Since Pierce Library is not in the business of buying and selling on a daily basis, we cannot provide current market information.
