Are there periodical series, such as National Geographic, that it makes sense for libraries to keep longterm?

I understand that each library collection is different and serves its own audience and clientele, but are there some periodicals that multiple libraries might want to acquire the full series? I have a significant collection of National Geographic magazines dating back to the seventies as well as some other titles. Is there a good way to donate these? How would I approach a library about making a donation? My reasoning is that I would like to donate them to a library that would like to add to its back issues collection or something helpful like that.

grayQuant

• collection-development
• periodicals

Comments

• jonsca: Hi grayQuant. Unfortunately, questions on the site must pertain to issues that professional librarians would face. This is more of a "consumer" issue. I'm not sure it can be reformulated as to reflect the perspective of the library (as "should libraries accept old magazines" or something of that nature isn't very constructive). I'm not sure where else this would be on-topic, to be honest.
• Canadian Girl Scout: @jonsca Hi :) Keeping the above suggestions in mind, I've attempted to edit this question to make it useful to the community at large. Hope others vote to reopen!
• jonsca: @CanadianGirlScout Not trying to give you a hard time here, but you didn't change the basic premise of the question from what made it off topic in the first place. You did inject some professional aspects into it, but the "where should I donate my magazines" isn't something pertinent to a librarian in a professional setting. We'll see what others think.
• Canadian Girl Scout: @jonsca The OP does not ask 'Where should I donate my magazines?' The question, as edited, is valid and applicable to librarianship today. New librarians face such issues and ask themselves these questions. A good answer here will help new librarians to be able to explain their collection-development practices & policies and may provide a script (of sorts) to follow when they are faced with similar questions about series retention and donations.
• jonsca: He has said "Is there a good way to donate these?", which you have left in your edit of the question. Again, I'm willing to leave this up to the community to decide, but I think if you have a question about series retention and how libraries should treat donations, just formulate it constructively and ask that as a brand new question. As is, you're also getting further from the OP's intent, which isn't completely fair to him/her.
• jonsca: @CanadianGirlScout Please don't be discouraged, though, there are a lot of questions on the site that could use polishing! I just think we may be beating a dead horse with this one.
• grayQuant: Sorry for all the trouble, I did not realize that this SE was strictly professional questions, I thought some library professionals would be able to answer my question based on their knowledge.
• jonsca: @grayQuant No, no trouble at all, it just wasn't on topic. Apologies that we littered your inbox with our debate.
• Joe: @grayQuant : just go and ask your local library. Ours gets enough donations of magazines that we have rules for how to deal with them. (recent ones get sent to the local retirement community; some get sold with weeded books, etc.)