Month: October 2016

October 26, 2016

SolarSPELL: Solar Powered Educational Learning Library

Just read about this super interesting new method to deliver a digital library that comes with its own Wi-Fi hotspot – useful for many rural areas around the globe.

Arizona State University professor Laura Hosman in the Schools of Engineering and the School for the Future of Innovation in Society created this innovative device, the Solar Powered Educational Learning Library, known as SolarSPELL

WHAT IS IT?  A digital library full of educational resources that generates its own Wi-Fi signal and solar power though any internet-capable device, such as an iPad, laptop or smartphone. AKA – a self-powered plug-and-play kit, portable enough to fit into a backpack.

October 17, 2016

Adopt-a-bottle: Reusing lost & found water bottles!

1017160957I love this initiative happening on campus through our Student Sustainability Initiative’s Adopt-a-Bottle program.   The Purpose: (1) Increase accessibility of drinking tap water on campus; (2) Repurpose unclaimed bottles to avoid waste

Currently, unclaimed water bottles are sent to Surplus where they are cataloged,  held in lost and found for 30 days, and then put up for sale but there is an excess of bottles that are never sold.  The adopt-a-bottle program would take those unclaimed excess water bottles, have them thoroughly sanitized (by Housing and Dining, according to the local Health Department regulations), and make them available to campus students, faculty, and staff for free. The bottles will have a seal/sticker over the top to indicate it has been sanitized and part of the project.  Then, they will be available for people to take if they do not have their own reusable bottle because they cannot afford one, lost one, or just forgot their bottle that day. 

The main location is the library – the heaviest traffic, the largest building, and the only building opened 24/5! 

 

October 11, 2016

ODLOS blog Intersections – calls for contributors

The ALA Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services (ODLOS)is launching Intersections, a new blog that highlights the everyday work of library and information science workers as they advocate for equity and inclusion as they relate to diversity, literacy and access among membership, the field of librarianship and the communities they serve. The blog invites submissions from across the library profession featuring:

  • those from historically and disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups;
  • those who experience socioeconomic barriers, people experiencing hunger, homelessness and poverty;
  • immigrants, refugees and new Americans; those discriminated against based on nationality or language;
  • those who are geographically isolated;
  • those experiencing barriers in regards to access to literacy; and new and non-readers.

 

 

October 2, 2016

Last call for papers: World Symposium on Sustainabilty Science…

Join in the conversation at the World Symposium on Sustainability Science: Implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals– in Manchester, UK, 5th-7th April 2017 by submitting your abstract by October 15th (deadline has been extended – even though the website doesn’t indicate that). Accepted papers will be published in the publication “Handbook of Sustainability Science and Research”

The United Nations  are celebrating this week the first anniversary of the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda, which set-up the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined in   “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” — a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity, which seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom and shows the need for an integrated handling of the three main dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental.