Donating collections to the KB

If you have a collection of books, newspapers or magazines that you are considering donating to the KB as a gift, please read the following information first.

The KB collects and preserves all books, newspapers and magazines published in the Netherlands, and everything published in other countries about the Netherlands. Although we have a very extensive collection, we are still missing a lot of publications. Donated items can therefore be a welcome addition. But we don’t accept everything we are offered.

If you are considering donating, always first get in touch with our donation coordinators at @email. They can tell you exactly what we expect regarding donations. Collection items must for instance be in a proper condition and can’t be publications that are already present in the KB collection. The donation coordinators can instruct you how to check this. 

We only accept incomplete series, single editions of magazines and unaltered reprints as an exception.

The KB cannot give any guarantee about how long it will take us to make donated publications accessible through the library catalogue. 

We would be delighted if your organisation or company wants to donate a collection larger than 500 publications to the KB. However, due to the necessary internal processing activities and possibly also restauration efforts, such donations can come at quite an expense to the KB. Because of this, the management of the KB decides whether or not such large donations are accepted. We also apply extra acceptance conditions for donations larger than 500 publications, in addition to the above-mentioned criteria. We for instance require a full overview of all individual titles that are present in the offered collection. Also, our donation coordinators will make a site visit to assess the material condition of the collection objects. As a result, they may conclude that the offered donation does not match the KB's collection policy and profile in terms of content or quality, or that we don’t have the necessary resources to process the donation. 

In case of the latter, we may ask for a contribution to the cost of transporting, storing and cataloguing the material and its metadata. Ask the donation coordinators about the possibilities.

If the KB has accepted your donation, you can deliver the material to the KB yourself or send it to our postal address. Please contact the gift coordinators for details. The KB will only pick up material in exceptional cases.

Unfortunately, we cannot accept donations that are brought or sent to the KB without prior consultation with the donation coordinators. 

The KB is a so-called Culturele ANBI (Cultural Public Benefit Institution, RSIN 007969880). If you are subject to Dutch income tax law, this may allow you to deduct donations or financial gifts to the KB from your income tax, sometimes up to 125 percent of the value. If you make a periodic donation for at least 5 years, the Dutch tax authorities offer additional benefits. Please ask your tax advisor if and how this applies to your personal situation.

For more information about donations, please send an email to @email.