Working at the City of Palo Alto, where we have an Office of Sustainability (http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/services/sustainability/default.asp), means that our business activities and programs and entire orientation includes ways to make our libraries more sustainable. In fact, we are a partner with other city departments and the community in all types of efforts, including the Cool Smart Cities project. Three of the five library branches have achieved LEED status (2 silver, 1 platinum) and others have been renovated to highlight ways that the buildings have added “green” factors. I’ve spoken about our building development and planning in conferences and webinars, describing how we continue to build on the education possibilities and community education and our LEED platinum rated building has a collection and education focus on green building practices.

Why do I mention this about my workplace? For me, sustainability has become an internal and external value, part of who we all are as library workers, as green leaders, and as part of our communities. Libraries are the ultimate tool for sustainability – not only can we educate our communities and model sustainable practices, as we incorporate these practices into our daily work, we become ambassadors. I know that this carries itself forward into how I approach problem solving, strategy development, and resource allocation. This is true not only for my daily work, but my participation in PLA. I feel that this is an area that continues to grow and one where PLA can position to be a leader.

More than this, sustainability is about how public libraries can continue to function as the vital community education and workforce resource they are. In most communities, the public library offers a neutral space for pursuing truth and making citizenship in all its forms available. PLA will continue to emphasize the value this brings to communities and, with my background and experience, will ensure that sustainability is just as much a part of the culture as it is where I work every day. I encourage you to do the same – participate in the election and make your priorities known.

Thank you for your work and your dedication to this important issue. I welcome any comments or questions!

Dear SustainRT Members,

My name is Susan Conlon and I am candidate for Member-at-Large of SustainRT, and I hope you will consider electing me to this position. It would be my honor to serve to make a contribution to its core objective to “exchange ideas and opportunities regarding sustainability in order to move toward a more equitable, healthy and economically viable society.”

First and foremost professionally I am the Head of Youth Services at the Princeton Public Library in New Jersey and I love my job. It’s a welcoming and shared public space connecting a diverse, international and vibrant small university town with a place for people of all ages to gather, explore, learn, and play.

Combining my passions – being an advocate for social and youth justice, film fanatic and promoter of sustainability for the planet – with the opportunity to work in an organization that values collaboration between departments and thinking outside the box, I founded the Princeton Environmental Film Festival in 2003, and I’ve have been leading it since. It has grown to become one of the library’s signature annual programs and its commitment to advancing environmental literacy.

Creating and renewing the festival each year illustrates why I think I’d be a good addition to SustainRT as a Member-at-Large. I have a proven track record of working with people, engaging and involving the community, and identifying, imagining, and implementing a unique way for libraries to be vital institutional leaders in environmental sustainability.

The content of the festival crosses over and intersects with many platforms, from film, to literature, science, art, poetry and even fashion – our “Trashion Show” featuring youth wearing their creative designs crafted from recycled materials they proudly walked red-carpet style was a huge hit.

You can view the festival website and get a preview of the films in our upcoming event starting March 27 at www.princetonlibrary.org/peff.

Here’s a bit more on my background:

I graduated from Rutgers University where I studied English and Art and returned later when my three children were in school to get my MLS.  

I am crazy about books, dogs, movies, and spending time in cities and the natural world. While libraries are my favorite shared built-spaces, my love for two places in the natural and outside world were shared with me and nurtured by my parents; my city-born and raised father and I discovered trees and a quest to learn about their unique identities; and my mom, whom I suspect was part-porpoise, grew up in a small town on the Jersey shore, where she lured me into the ocean to swim and made me love big waves.

~ Susan

Thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts about the Sustainability RT and the importance of its work today.

I was a member of ALA Council in 2015 when we passed the “Resolution on the Importance of Sustainable Libraries,” and I was happy to support it. At the time, I associated the idea of sustainability in libraries with green building, sustainable business practices, and, maybe, the idea that our move to a greater and greater reliance on digital content and information technology might be contributing to concerns such as use of electricity, e-waste, etc. It is fair to say that my appreciation for the importance of this resolution was not as expansive as it is today, but, also to be fair, we are living in a different world.

To me, the heart of this resolution is the idea that “libraries are uniquely positioned and essential to build the capacity of the communities they serve to be sustainable, resilient, and regenerative,” and the need for libraries to play that role has never been as important as it is today. I think it is telling that the Sustainability Round Table clearly drew on this vision for the role of libraries in communities in its January 2017 statement about our current situation when it focused not just on the environmental impact of the directions signaled by the new Administration, but on the way librarians work with their communities “to build community resilience as we all face an uncertain future together.” 

That future has only become more uncertain in the weeks since that statement was made, and, as I write this, the Trump Administration has just released a proposed budget that decimates our capacity, as a society, to support the arts, libraries, museums, public education, and the basic and applied science critical to a sustainable future. Librarians can, and must, not only model sustainable practices in their work, and provide the information services and educational programs that will help to spread broader awareness of how to pursue a sustainable future for one’s self and our planet, but we must radically expand our vision of the library’s role in building a resilient community, whether that community is a school, a town, a city, or a college. In a world where senior government officials question the scientific consensus around issues such as global warming and climate change, the mandate to expand our educational and advocacy role around sustainability is clear.

Here at home, we have a great example of a library making a commitment to sustainability in Chicago Public Library. In 2012, the Urban Libraries Council recognized the work that CPL had done to “[make] green routine,” in its buildings and its business practices. More recently, CPL has collaborated with Hive Chicago to promote “The Sustainability Hack” an education and outreach program aimed at young adults. What this tells us is that the library has powerful partners in the community who want to help us not only to pursue sustainability in our work, but to be part of broader discussions of how we promote a sustainability mindset among our kids and our communities. As an academic librarian, this points the way to new thinking about the “value of the academic library,” and the ways in which it can contribute to mission-centered commitments to sustainability, such as, in my case, the DePaul Sustainability Network.

There is one final lesson that I took from the sustainability resolution, and that is the importance of energizing the connection between ALA Chapters and Big ALA. The Council of the New York Library Association passed its resolution on sustainability in 2014, and the launch of the NYLA Sustainability Initiative is inspiring. Throughout this election, I have stressed the capacity that ALA has to energize a national, grassroots effort that engages our members at the local, state, and national levels, and the events of the past 7 weeks have only further demonstrated how important that is. Sustainability is one policy area where we have a great example of how that can be done, and we should build on it.

I have made a commitment throughout my campaign to focus our efforts as an Association on the critical challenges before us, and empower our Association and its members to play the leading role they must in defense of our core values, and our rights and responsibilities as information professionals and community members. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to learn more about me and about my candidacy at (walter4ala.org), and I would welcome your support.

There is important work for us to do, and, with your vote, we can do it together

• Leadership and Transformation through professional orientation from internal to outward towards the community,
• Literate Nation in the area of sustainable and resilient public libraries, and
• Organizational Excellence – to develop tools and resources to education PLA members, the PLA Board and PLA staff on the importance of Sustainability.  (PLA Strategic Plan, June 2014).

Thank you for the opportunity to post on the Sustainability Roundtable blog.

Librarians are leaders in knowledge dissemination and have a battle ahead of us with the current administration. The actions that the Trump administration has taken in only 50 days are threatening the very idea of environmental protection. First, the action that they took against the National Park Service to deny climate change was outrageous. That action was followed quickly by removing all mention of climate change from the whitehouse.gov website. The EPA was instructed to remove all information about climate change from their website.  Then, unbelievably, Scott Pruitt, a man who has sued the EPA 14 times, was appointed as the head of the EPA. The future for our environment is bleak under this administration.

For these reasons, we must be even more dedicated to keeping knowledge available for our citizens. This roundtable must be a source for the rest of the association and, if I am elected as president, I will look to you for guidance and authority.

Your mission is reflected in my campaign platform. You can read more about it at www.grief4alapresident.com . There are three main strands in my platform: Strengthening Relationships, Empowering Communities, and Uniting Voices. We must strengthen relationships within ALA and with those stakeholders in the outside community. We must join with others to keep information free and available to our students and patrons. Now, more than ever, we have to continue to fight the good fight. This will empower our communities in ways that will benefit not only the present generations, but the generations that follow. We must speak with one loud and strong voice that what libraries do matter to the good of the society. We must be diligent.

It is critical that we work together to keep sustainability at the forefront of our legislators. I come from a coal state where some people see the environmental concerns as an opposition to their income. Sen. Mitch McConnell is an outspoken detractor for the environment and I am appalled by his actions. We can not idly stand by and let this administration discount science and facts for they perceive as economic gain.

Thank you for your work and dedication. I look forward to working with you.