oh those tricky donors

It's very quiet Wednesday morning (post-snowstorm and the City thinks the snow is a lie). Four young people come up to Sciences desk with a box of books. They seem very put together. Turns out they'd like to make a donation of a complete set of L. Ron Hubbard's works. Smile pasted firmly in place, I'm trying to back the hell off this boat. You see, they'd called last night, spoke to my supervisor and requested that when they drop the books off, they take a photo with some library personnel. I was NOT going to be in the photo, I made this very clear when he asked me; but, here they were. I'll admit, I panicked a little and called my favourite area manager. She said she'd take care of it. Not five minutes later, she and our CEO (!!!) are walking into the department, all smiles. As I type this, they're setting up the books so that they can be displayed optimally.

Here are a few facts:
1) our manager has already decided we will NOT be adding these books into our collection, so they'll probably go straight to book sale where someone will buy them for $2-$5.
2) half of this man's work is classified as Science Fiction and doesn't belong anywhere near the Sciences department
3) we have every religion in this department represented (including Satanism, Paganism and Naturalism)
4) the young people are very put together: young, hip, stylish. But none are local (3 from the states, one from Toronto); the two boys, especially, have a Ryan Gosling and young Keanu vibe happening; my opinion is confirmed by my colleague (who, like me, is on the good side of 30).

Here are a few questions:
1) Is a donation really worth all this hassle?
2) Why are scientologists more special than the mainstream religious group who wanted to make a similar donation but were denied even a bookplate inside their books to say it WAS a donation?
3) why are cute boys and girls part of such a crazy scam?
4) why DON'T we have books on dianetics?

hypothesis: there's something in the Kool-Aid.