My interest in green librarianship is something relatively new. My husband has always been interested in environmental causes and it's because of him that I'm slowly learning to clean house with vinager and baking soda, and make do without paper towels in my kitchen (suburbia raised...left the lights on in my room all the time even if I wasn't in it...it's been a difficult transition).

We have a few people on our staff also interested in living and working greener. Our city used to provide recycling services, however, it turned out to be a bust investment since not enough people in the community used the service to make the cost of providing it worthwhile. We have recycling locations downtown. In the past years, random staff members have taken it upon themselves to be responsible for taking paper and plastic water bottles down to these locations to be recycled. But it's never been an organized thing. I few months ago we put together a team of three to alternate months so the responsibility wouldn't have to fall on one person. However, our efforts are small compared to what we could do and I fear the changes that could be made, would probably not be welcomed or at least be seen as too drastic.

In researching green libraries I came across this post from One Big Library on information footprints. I was particularly interested in what he had to say about interlibrary loan services. The proposition being made by him and some of the commentors was that providing a kind of print on demand service would leave less of an environmental footprint then a typical ILL service.

So let's analyze it a little bit more closely: to ILL a book from one library to another, you have to ship it in both directions somehow, and the patron has to visit the library twice. Efficiencies can be gained whenever libraries already have sharing programs with local transport solutions (like connected local branches) or other systemic efficiencies (like if frequent sharing partners ship multiple items together in boxes rather than one at a time, or a bookmobile service that follows a steady route, eliminating the need for patron travel).

I do sometimes wonder about the future of ILL services for public libraries, especially in our case. During a particularly difficult budget year, our library posed a $2 fee for every ILL request to cover the mailing costs. Some patrons are happy to pay the fee and thankful for the service. Others look at me like I'm from outerspace and tell me that they could probably get their title in used paperback format for the same price from places like half.com and be able to keep it. I certainly can't argue with that notion. However, in these instances, I think we are dealing with two different types of patrons. The latter is internet savvy, the former is not. Of course, we do also have strays who don't fit into either catagory who are still dumbfounded at the fact that they have to pay for an ILL book. The question remains how do we provide services to everyone that are convenient, cost efficient and more environmentally friendly.

Then there's the paper towel issue. Around the same time we required the $2 fee for ILL, we stopped providing paper towels in the public bathrooms. Cost efficient and environmentally friendly, right? We have an air dryer they can use. Since I work on the main floor, I use this bathroom periodically. I've seen people get more than a little miffed when they notice there aren't any paper towels and instead of using the hand dryer like we would expect them too, they head straight for a bathroom stall and grab a bunch of toilet paper. Not sure this ones working folks but that's just my own observation.

Books

There's a whole slew of "green" books being published right now and I'm devouring them as quickly as I can (reading for fun has become a leisurely activity since having a child). I'm currently reading Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart and find the notion of a new green industrial revolution very exciting. However, the trend at the moment seems to be the easy tip, quick read green book. For instance, True Green@Work provides 100 practical ways your work place can make less of an environmental footprint. Some of them don't really apply to libraries, are more geared towards corporations, business that invest. Other suggestions are applicable but might be difficult to initiate. For instance, buying Energy Star complient equipment, providing flextime to avoid congested traffic jams. There are other simple things that could be done such as using recycled paper for public printouts (patrons requiring special paper for cards or resumes already bring their own)and using a water filter instead of buying boxes of bottled water.

The Green Book also provides some interesting tips, however, the authors contradict themselves when it comes to libraries.

On page 17 under Books the authors write:

Use the library, or buy secondhand books. Consider sharing the ones you have with friends or donating them rather than throwing them away. About three billion new books are sold per year, requiring four hundred thousand trees to be chopped down.

Then on page 47 under Homework the authors switch course:

Library Books: Try using a digital library or the World Wide Web instead of traveling to your local branch to do research. You'll save time and money. The circulation of books from public libraries is 1.9 billion a year, or about 7 items checked out per person. If every American checked out and researched online a single book a year, we would save three hundred million trips to the bookshelves.

Clearly the authors don't know much about libraries. Maybe they have the World Wide Web at their finger tips, but thousands of other people don't which is why they come to the library, to access the internet, to do research. Rather urkesome. I feel like writing them and telling them to go back to the World Wide Web and do some more research. Better yet visit their local library and maybe a nice librarian will tell them whassup.

Other sources:

World Changing: A Users Guide for the 21st Century by Alex Steffen
Tiny Choices
Green Librarian (see is ask Green Librarian a question service)
The Green Office
Energy Star
My Footprint quiz
FreeRice game