Can professors generally keep books paid for with university funds?
There's the &quot;legal ownership&quot; element, but given the situation you've described, I'd attach even more importance to the moral/ethical element:

Who is most likely to use these books?

I suspect if your department is being shut down, no one will care about the legal ownership specifics unless you provoke them to. So you could consider triaging:

College library, for books which in your professional judgment students or faculty in other remaining departments could use.

Keep yourself, for specialized material or your favorite books that you expect to use in the next years or decades.

Gifted to colleagues elsewhere for other useful material in your field.

&quot;Free&quot; box outside your door, for the stuff you'd otherwise throw out.


I have fortunately not been in quite this situation in academia proper, but I did leave a private sector research institute that got effectively disbanded with my (and others') departure. This is the approach I followed.