Month: July 2013

July 29, 2013

Books on Bikes!

Thrilled to see this story from the Arizona Daily Star about the Pima County Public Library’s Books on Wheels program. In partnership with Pima County Bike Ambassadors,  those homebound can still get library books from this monthly Books on Wheels program at three Tucson branches.  Karen Greene, the adult-services librarian launched the program about a year ago. A bike ambassador picks up the books once a month at the branches, delivers them and returns any the patron has finished. Find out the locations and dates for the Bookbike program – and check out more photos! 

July 26, 2013

The White Paper – corporate social responsibility & sustainability

Free online resource:  The White Paper which is a Generation Alliance consulting firm offering perspectives on business and branding. This month they feature an issue of a collection of stories and narratives related to corporate social responsibility, citizenship and sustainability. The Sustain Group Pty Ltd and the United Nations Global Compact Network in Australia worked with Generation Alliance for this issue’s stories. The issues offers  stories such as  Green Washing, Rethinking Global Goals, Corporate Social Responsibility, and on sustainable development.  This issue of the White Paper  might be work adding/linking to in your library. 

July 15, 2013

Article: recycling old buildings into libraries

ifla_journal_imageThis IFLA Journal (from Sage Journals) article called The second hand library building: Sustainable thinking through recycling old buildings into new libraries, written by Petra Hauke and Klaus Ulrich Wener (Of Berlin School of Library and Information Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany) discusses the debatable topic of tearing down old buildings to build “green” or transforming existing buildings – perhaps not libraries – into sustainable library buildings.  Recycling older buildings can be challenging  but reduces the ecological footprint!  The article discusses some best practices and case studies gleaned  from Germany and other European counties. The article includes some photos of interesting redesign too.

It also covers the important aspect of educating LIS student’s in sustainable building design  “so that the new generation of librarians will adopt the ideas and goals of sustainability in library buildings through recycling old buildings for excellent library use.” [page 64] The Berlin School for Library and Information Science has a  seminar course called “Turning a book from idea to realization” where the students pick a topic in LIS, solicit authors, peer review the articles, and get them ready to print by an open access publisher! They have now published a few books on library buildings including “Secondhand but excellent! The Reuse of old buildings for library use” [find in German on Amazon | open access online in German]

Read the article to find out more! and what a great idea  – wonder if other library schools are offering this real world experience for their students!

July 9, 2013

Aeroponics Makerspace

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photo from the ASU libguide

As we are looking at creating a makercommons or makerspace in our library, I think of  3D printers and scanner, but what a cool idea at ASU creating a custom aeroponics system,  to show literally  how things grow using sustainable technology! They are using a Custom Aeroponics™ technologies that use no soil or standing water, but a system that sprays  the plants with water and nutrients. It apparently  saves water and maximized plant growth, with computer-controlled lighting and watering cycles. The ASU project was created and run by a student, funded through ASU’s Edson Student Entrepreneurship Initiative, with seeds  donated by Native Seeds/SEARCH. View details on their libguide or watch a short video of how it works.

July 3, 2013

Follow Up from ALA Chicago: SustainRT

LearnMoreThe  NEW SustainRT of ALA met for both a walk and an official meeting at ALA Chicago.  More details and notes will be in our official ALA connect site soon but a nice overall blog post was writing by one of our founding members Ashley Jones in Proquest’s Blog already.  Interested in join? You can sign up in September with ALA, but for now stay informed by  joining our new listserv – sustainrt-l@ala.org –  open to any ALA member by signing up here.  The founding members were thrilled with the high attendance at our meeting, all the ideas shared, those who volunteered to help, and those who have been active in the sustainability movement in ALA for years now who shared support.

Stay tuned for more to come about SustainRT … and a blog post soon on an amazing session I attended at ALA:  How the Dutch Caribbean Goes Green with Libraries and Other Supporters