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

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

#Chief learnings from ‘green’ focused presentations at ALIA National 2022

Green is the way to go: Sustainability Practises for Your LibraryDr Kasey Garrison, Dr Sabine Wardle and Dr Jane Garner – Charles Sturt University The team, commissioned by ALIA  to work on the Greening Libraries Research project, have (and are) conducting case studies across several NSW and Victorian public libraries, with a view to collating

International Women’s Day 2022

The #BreakTheBias message and the #IWD2022 theme calling for ‘gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’, makes perfect sense. In the Women’s Agenda article, Stop ignoring climate change on International Women’s Day,  it is disturbing to read the impact that, according to the IPCC, every 0.1 degree of warming makes to the lives of women

12 environmentally friendly New Year’s resolutions for libraries.

Are you planning to make 2022 a better and more sustainable year. Here are 12 ideas to help you make a start. Some are simple and easy to achieve, while others will need careful planning, collaboration with your community, or even investment of funds via a grant, or from your parent organisation. The important thing

5 ways to have a sustainable Christmas this year

Christmas doesn’t have to be a time of excess and indulgence. You can care for the planet and celebrate with your family and friends. Here’s 5 tips to have a sustainable Christmas this year: 1. Don’t use the air conditioner: The Sydney Morning Herald reported last year that air conditioning and refrigeration account for around

3 ways to get your library on board with the COP26 initiative

Accelerating deep collaboration: 26 built environment climate action initiatives announced.https://buildingtocop.org/2021/11/11/accelerating-deep-collaboration-26-built-environment-climate-action-initiatives-announced-at-cop26/  While we all know in our hearts and minds, that libraries are and will forever be SO much more than buildings with books, we are, nonetheless and in actual fact, buildings with books. And those buildings, (and also the books, but we’ll look at that

A flurry of green library activity

Much has been happening in the “greening libraries” space in the past few months so it’s time for a bit of a roundup of highlights. IFLA ENSULIB – from SIG to Section Early this year the IFLA ENSULIB SIG (Environment, Sustainability and Libraries) was officially recognised as a new IFLA section. Although only 40 applications