Cold weather opportunities

As the colder weather creeps up on us, here are 4 ideas for keeping ourselves and others warm, and caring for the environment at the same time. Let’s start with a warm cuppa. Nothing beats warming up your hands and insides with a nice hot cup of coffee, tea, chocolate or soup. So when reaching

Sustainable Libraries in Action

Kingston Library, Libraries Tasmania ran the first ever Kingborough Repair Café on Sunday 2 April. Staffed by Libraries Tasmania volunteers, and led by the Kingston Library Community Learning Coordinator, this is the first of a regular event to be held once every quarter.  The Kingborough Repair Café is registered under Repair Café International and is

4 things you can tidy on Digital Clean Up Day 2023

It’s Digital Clean Up Day on Saturday 18 March and if you think digital waste is harmless, think again! According to data on the Digital Clean Up Day website, a single email emits 4g of CO2. Just think of all those emails clogging up your Sent box… then think of the planet! But we have

Why we love our libraries.

Our libraries and our roles within them might be different but, there are things that draw us together in our love for our libraries. Working in libraries allows us to make order out of chaos, and I’m sure we’re all quite familiar with Neil Gaiman’s famous quote “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A

3 ways to keep your New Year’s sustainability resolutions

It’s 2023 and you’ve set yourself some goals. If you’re anything like us at least some of those goals are to do with living a more sustainable, environmentally conscious life. But how do you keep those New Year’s resolutions after the fireworks fade and the sound of party poppers dies away? With a little help

6 easy ways your library can promote sustainability

It’s National Recycling Week and we all know how easy it is to feel like the problems of waste and consumerism are just too big to tackle. But libraries can achieve so much in creating sustainable lifestyles for their communities. Here are some of our tips: 3. Recycle ewaste: Branches of Melbourne City Libraries have

4 books about climate change you need to read

Readers are leaders! If you want to know more about climate change look no further than your public library. It’s Buy Nothing New Month in October so instead of hitting the bookshops (so tempting for us librarians!) visit your local library and stock up on books about climate change. Here’s 4 recent titles you might

Sustainable Spring has Sprung! 3 ways to promote Sustainability in Spring

1. Shout about it! Last week I was so pleased to read an article on the Fifth Estate about how Millennials are driving sustainability through their choices of home buying or building. Sustainability gathers pace with millennials buying homes. If they are buying a new home, they want all the sustainable green happenings and they

Books – from covering to end-of-life

Heard of nose-to-tail eating? This involves utilising the entire animal for increased sustainability in agriculture. But how about prologue-to-epilogue, foreword-to-afterword, or even preface to appendix for book usage? Libraries have always championed sustainability. Our core business of lending books is the epitome of REDUCE and REUSE, but the RECYCLE is not as good as it

3 ways to be ‘green’ in the Children’s and YA space

1. Create a garden wall In 2020 Melbourne Girls’ College library saw the outside brought inside with an incredible green garden wall. A survey of students in previous years showed that they really valued the plant life already in the library . The Melbourne Girls’ College community places an emphasis on education for sustainability, environmental