Dear SustainRT Members,
I’m running for Coordinator-Elect of SustainRT and I’d like to ask for your vote.
I am an academic librarian at the University of Utah with a specialty in government information (think environmental policy and citizen engagement).
You may remember my name from the 2016 SustainRT ballot. I didn’t win last year, but I got enough votes to feel encouraged and losing the election led me to seek another way to engage with sustainability. I have spent the past year on leave from the campus library working as an embedded librarian out of the University of Utah Sustainability Office. I recently presented a webinar for SustainRT about this experience: “STARS and Beyond: Adventures of an Embedded Librarian in the Campus Sustainability Office.” ( http://olos.ala.org/sustainrt/2017/02/24/upcoming-sustainrt-webinar-march-9th-1215-1245-pm-est/) At the moment I’m immersed in sustainability issues and I would be able to step into the Coordinator-Elect role full of fresh ideas and renewed enthusiasm.
My main effort in the Sustainability Office was helping to compile the AASHE STARS Report for the University of Utah (https://stars.aashe.org/). STARS details campus-wide sustainability efforts, and identifies areas for improvement. Since the University of Utah is the size of a small city it was a huge undertaking. From this experience I have a deeper appreciation for the process of shifting organizations from business-as-usual towards sustainable action. I am more than ever convinced that libraries have an essential information role to play in this transition.
Sometimes I describe myself as a “guerrilla librarian,” since I try to take library values out into the wider community. Since 2001 I have written a monthly environmental news column for Catalyst Magazine, (https://www.catalystmagazine.net/) a local non-profit publication in Salt Lake City with a focus on “resources for creative living”. Catalyst readers don’t realize this, but my environmental news is based on an information literacy model to teach citizen engagement using policy as an entry point to activism and systemic change.
The links below show some of my own interests and activities that relate to sustainability. My personal focus has been on collection development to support sustainability and on libraries fostering citizen engagement. Other SustainRT members have other passions, and as Coordinator I would work to integrate our diverse voices and interests into a larger vision of libraries helping to create a more equitable, healthy, and economically viable society.
Selected Sustainability Articles
Amy Brunvand. Greening Higher Education. Catalyst Magazine, (Dec. 31, 2016) http://www.catalystmagazine.net/greening-higher-education/
Re-Localizing the Academic Library: Comments on an essay by Rebekkah Smith Aldrich. ALA SustainRT Blog. (7/20/2016) http://olos.ala.org/sustainrt/2016/07/20/re-localizing-the-academic-library-comments-on-an-essay-by-rebekkah-smith-aldrich/
Amy Brunvand & Ambra Gagliardi. “Sustainability, Relocalization, Citizen Activism and Government Information.” Dttp: Documents to the People. Summer 2015, 43(2), p..10-13.
Amy Brunvand. “Green Jell-O for the Genius Loci or How to Save the Earth with Poetry,” (p. 91-100) in Mark Todd. Western Weird. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2015.
Amy Brunvand; Jessica Breiman; Emily Bulluough; Joshua B. Lenart & Alison Regan. (2014) Building an Academic Library Collection to Support Sustainability. Focus on Educating for Sustainability: a Toolkit for Academic Librarians. Maria A. Jankowska, ed.: Library Juice Press.
About Me
Amy Brunvand [Librarian] Faculty Profile. https://faculty.utah.edu/u0031682-AMY_BRUNVAND/biography/index.hml
Amy Brunvand [Catalyst Magazine writer]. http://www.catalystmagazine.net/author/amy/
Amy Brunvand. [Poet] 15 Bytes: Utah’s Art Magazine. http://artistsofutah.org/15Bytes/index.php/sunday-blog-read-amy-brunvand/
Amy Brunvand, Goodreads (like all librarians, I judge other people by what they have on their bookshelves) https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/9972826?shelf=read
Meet Amy Brunvand, Candidate for Coordinator Elect of SustainRT! (4/5/2016) SustainRT Blog. http://olos.ala.org/sustainrt/2016/04/05/meet-amy-brunvand-candidate-for-coordinator-elect-of-sustainrt/
Amy Brunvand holds a cookie shaped like the logo of Utah Diné Bikéyah, a Native American-led grassroots organization working to protect Bears Ears National Monument.