Go Green at the ALA Conference

There are a few ways to be greener at the ALA Conference:

(1) Can you carpool to the conference, take a train, or if you fly rent a hybrid vehicle? You could also purchase carbon offset credits to offset your traveling greenhouse gas emissions. (Visit carbonfund.org)

(2) Can you stay in a green hotel? If not, be green where you are staying. Bring your own supplies and don’t use those small, wasteful plastic bottles. Reuse your towels and sheets instead of asking for clean ones daily. Make sure your lights are turned off in the room. Share a room with others. Drink your morning coffee/tea and water from your personal mug/bottle you brought with you. Check out the green hotel association Web site for more ideas.

(3) Eat at Green Restaurants. Here is a list of certified green places to support. Can you bring your leftovers back to the hotel in your own reusable container to reheat in a microwave for another meal?

(4) Ask you hotel and restaurants how green they are: do they recycle (many restaurants do not!), do they conserve water, do they use compact fluorescent light bulbs, etc. Check out the green hotel association Web site and the going greener restaurant site for more information.. you could even mention these Web sites to the manager of the place.

(5) Attend green sessions while at ALA. See this listing for details.

(6) Read this Green Report (a word doc) from ALA for the Anaheim Convention Center and all hotels who responded to their request.

(7) If you are NOT attending in person (like me!) you can still get information and even participate virtually on many committees, usually not until after the conference has ended. Many folks blog about the sessions they attended or presented. I do wish ALA would mandate a virtual conference side of their regular conference (even at cost – “sign up for the virtual conference”), so we could really virtual watch, read, participate or simply access the information w/o being there in person… anyone know if that is officially in the works?