Month: July 2019

By David Seldon

I am a seasoned librarian but a relatively new member of ALA and the Sustainability Round Table (SustainRT). In fact, the joining the SustainRT was the main reason I joined ALA. The size of the Association and large number of active, intelligent, and motivated members of SustainRT is impressive. Joining the Round Table made me feel immediately welcome and empowered. I jumped right in and joined the Governance Committee and started work on important projects like ALA endowment divestment from fossil fuels and participating in adding sustainability to ALA’s core values – rubbing elbows with Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, Uta Hussong-Christian and other remarkable librarians. Wow!

It didn’t take long for me to learn about the wide range of expertise on sustainability issues within SustainRT. As the former chair of American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Standing Committee on Environmental Sustainability, I had felt fairly isolated when working on sustainability issues. But that feeling of isolation changed when I joined ALA and the SustainRT. There are so many ways to become active and to learn from my new colleagues and to make a difference for the environment and our health, safety and well-being.

Besides working on big issues within ALA, I think the biggest value of being a member of the SustainRT is having access to all of the knowledge and support of the collective group. Often times we get stuck when trying to implement positive change within our own organizations. We might struggle with how to go about getting an energy/eco audit of our buildings to develop a baseline on energy use and greenhouse gases, or we may have difficulty deciding how to talk with management about starting an organization-wide “green committee.” The Round Table forum, webinar events, conference programs and the developing mentorship program are available to us to help us learn from each other to get unstuck and “get sustainability done.” We are here to help each other so don’t hesitate to ask for help, join a committee, participate in a webinar or conference program or just lurk on the forum.

David Selden is a member of the SustainRT Governance Committee and was a panel speaker for the “Carbon Offsets for Sustainability: Why, Where , How,” presented Sunday, June 23, 2019 at ALA Annual.

By Raymond Pun

This short video covers how to integrate information literacy and library resources to support campus sustainability research for STEM programs.

Raymond Pun is the Instruction/Research Librarian at Alder Graduate School of Education. Along with Dr. Gary Shaffer, he is the co-editor of the upcoming volume, The Sustainable Library’s Cookbook (ACRL Publications, Fall 2019) featuring over 40 contributions from academic librarians, teaching faculty and students on best practices and case studies to promote sustainability initiatives, activities and values in the academic library workplace. 

By Mary Beth Lock

Libraries have always been intrinsically connected to sustainability to me. I remember in my formative years finding that libraries were the great equalizer, eliminating barriers to access for people from all walks of life. One of my earliest memories in fact, is feeling literally empowered by receiving my first library card.  I was 6 years old, and suddenly, the entirety of my (now I recognize admittedly little) branch library was available to me. While I spent many an hour in the early reader’s chapter book section pursing Amelia Bedelia, Ramona and Nancy Drew, gleefully checking out what I could carry to read in the next few weeks, I recognized the inherent goodness and rightness that is embedded in such an institution whose very purpose is to share.  That became the basis of my lifelong love of libraries.

Now we have much changed society: one that is both more and less connected to each other, and certainly one that is more online. The value of that branch library may have less significance for today’s first graders as simply a place to find books. But it continues to fill niches for people from across the spectrum of users. Job searchers, and community organizers, and e- and paper book readers all can find reasons to utilize the library.  That foundational “sharing” ethic continues to be valued. But while it was once only the library’s duty to share, businesses have adopted the sharing ethic as well. With ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft; lodging opportunities like Couchsurfing and VRBO; car sharing, like Zipcar, many are recognizing the power of sharing instead of buying. And as we share what we have, we gain abundance. Sharing also has the added bonus of being easier on the environment because less stuff needs to be made. As the three pillars of Sustainability includes the social, the economic and the environmental, I recognize how libraries fulfill all three. The library provides a place to welcome all members of society. They fill the economic gap that divides some people from the information and resources they need. They are good stewards of the limited resources of our earth by allowing for easy sharing of the services and materials they have.  It is why my librarianship and my sustainability ethos are so closely aligned. We, none of us, own what we have. We are just the temporary borrowers of things. To paraphrase Chief Seattle, we borrow all we see from our grandchildren. Libraries of all sorts embody, manifest, and exemplify that position.

Mary Beth Lock is Assistant Dean and Director of Access Services in the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University. She is a founding member of SustainRT and served on the board as a Member-at-Large from 2015-2017. She has published articles and chapters on sustainability, service models, and entrepreneurship in libraries.