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

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

#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

10 ways I keep up to date with the latest sustainability trends

Sustainability trends are constantly evolving in response to natural disasters like floods and fires as well as the impact of a global pandemic. Use less plastic, invest in renewables, stop eating meat, start a worm farm… there is so much advice out there it’s hard to keep up! So for Earth Day today I’m sharing

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

4 gifts not to give this Valentine’s Day

Love is in the air and it’s easy to forget about sustainability amongst all the commercial hype and cliched ideas of romance. So we’re going to help you out with an easy to achieve list of gifts not to give if you want to protect our planet: Dinner for two at a restaurant (that serves