Green Libraries

FLA’s demands to be co-custodian of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development provides tremendous opportunity for libraries’ transformation into the future, but it comes with a huge obligation. The 2030 UN Agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 specific targets addressing the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. There is no doubt that we are in the phase where transformative change is necessary for libraries regarding sustainable development. However, most libraries have insufficient data to assess whether they are on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore, this paper presents a “Library Environment Sustainability Progress Index” (LESPI) which can be used as a benchmarking tool for any library to assess their compliance with the goals. In order to compile the Index, the 169 concrete targets were carefully examined and 46 of them selected for inclusion in the LESPI. The proposed measure has been pilot tested with a college library in New York. This measure should be tested with another library, perhaps with a public library, to monitor the feasibility of the Index. Moreover, creating a “composite score” for three major components of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) equation as well as for the Index in general would be beneficial to make more informative comparisons in the future with other libraries.

Triple Bottom Line Accounting (TBLA) refers to a method of measuring the economic, environmental, and community service impacts of an organization rather than the traditional practice of measuring just the financial bottom line. This chapter explores TBLA from a historical point-of-view; offers examples in higher education and discusses the implications for academic libraries. It concludes with ideas for the implementation of TBLA in libraries.

As Canada’s climate warms at double the rate of the rest of the world, Canadian libraries have an important responsibility towards guardianship and activism on the climate crisis. Libraries are often appraised on their climate change goals by inward-facing factors, such as building standards and collections. While these remain important, this paper proposes a taxonomy that develops assessment further outward in the direction of community activism and climate justice, and tests that taxonomy against the environmental sustainability indicators published by Ontario public libraries.

An essay contemplating the author's individual carbon footprint, along with some suggestions for things librarians can do to encourage their patrons to consider their individual impacts.

Amidst environmental crisis, the role of built environment sector becomes even more vital as it formed capacity in contributing a substantial factors to reduce energy usage and emission of greenhouse gas to atmosphere. Library specifically, act as crucial function in extending the agenda of promoting environmental practice. However, limited rating system explicitly for library's green initiatives makes it challenging for library to implement these initiatives due to lack of proper guidelines. Hence, this study was conducted to examine existing checklists measuring green initiatives in library and to formulate assessment list for evaluating sustainable library's operational initiatives. Systematic literature reviews were conducted in establishing the evaluation checklist, in which three existing checklists related to green initiatives in library were compared and referred to. The assessment checklist developed in this study identifies 107 initiatives related to facilities can be implemented by existing libraries in Malaysia. The result of this study serves as a basis for libraries in Malaysia to environmentally improve its facilities.

This paper originated from conclusions I wrote down in doing my thesis about sustainability in libraries. At first it is necessary to understand library’s recycling role in society and its sustainable development in basic functions like borrowing and returning books or offering open and free space to the public. Environmental certifications like LEED or environmental management systems (ISO 14000) are not fully compatible with libraries and they lack the understanding of special features of libraries. Oulu University of Applied Sciences is planning a project in order to meet this need and creating an evaluation model and indicators of sustainable development for libraries. Sustainable areas taken into consideration in evaluating library’s sustainability could be space, green IT, strategies, collection management, location and environmental awareness of both public and staff. It is also noteworthy to consider different levels of analysis: users, library staff, decision makers and host organization. Users should be offered recycling points for books and waste, staff should be committed to sustainability and communicate their awareness. Library strategies should include a sustainable point of view. It is noteworthy that the library is often a part of a large organization in a municipality, town or school, college, university etc. If the host organization has an environmental management system, library is most likely a part of that. In cases where there is no environmental policy in a host organization, it is much more difficult to follow one. Sustainability needs commitment from every person in the organization. As a result of this project, a specific libraries’ environmental label and auditing system could be developed which would increase environmental awareness among staff and customers and would make libraries greener, more sustainable, which is the ultimate objective. One can optimistically state that this model could be used worldwide and this project made international from the very beginning.

Library evaluation has evolved across the decades to take account of the role of services and collections within their institutions. The framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) enables consideration of the value and benefits of libraries within national and international development. Taking this approach, based on the theory of change, provides different insights to the work of libraries. The article provides an overview of library assessment and information on the development of the UN SDGs. Australian academic library activities are assessed using four SDGs to reveal a contribution beyond the walls of their institutions. Methodological comparisons frame a discussion about the nature of value.

This paper discusses the role of sustainability metrics in quality management in Library and Information Services (LIS), contributing to the ongoing debate by developing an integrated framework that offers an opportunity to measure sustainability value, influence and meaning of information services, and providing an illustrative example of LIS professionals and students discussion in Portugal. LIS assessment experience can strongly contribute to the debate around culture and development and, therefore, global sustainability. But in order to have its expertise externally recognize, the library and information community needs to integrate the sustainability perspective into the LIS performance evaluation research and practice, using new tools and outlining a meta-management assessment strategy.

The United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) present libraries with a unique opportunity to share and promote how their work not only contributes to local initiatives but is making the world a better place. Library programs are often aimed at improving the quality of life at the local level by delivering programs and services that support literacy, numeracy, lifelong learning, and civic engagement. These same local initiatives also contribute to making global economic progress. The SDG framework provides an excellent way to document your efforts, measure progress toward targets, and achieve goals that are relevant to your local stakeholders, as well as help accomplish national and international objectives.