San Diego County Public Library FIRST in California to be Certified Sustainable!

logo of the San Diego County Library

We could not be more excited to announce that the San Diego County Public Library is the first library in California to be certified under the Sustainable Library Certification Program!

Super proud of Matthew Bollerman (show below having fun at the Imperial Beach branch of the San Diego County Library), co-founder of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative for serving as the mentor to this library during their certification journey. This is the largest library organization – BY FAR – that has been certified through the program.

Read all about their journey here and check out their final presentation here.

They just got some great coverage for this achievement thanks to the Our Towns Civic Foundation, check it out here: How Libraries Are Becoming ‘Sustainable’

Ashley Grillo, one of the first school librarians to be certified under the Sustainable Library Certification Program featured in School Library Journal!

How wonderful to see School Library Journal recognize the trail blazing leadership of Ashley Grillo, a librarian at Spackenkill (NY) High School! We are big fans of Ashley as she was one of the first school librarians to be certified under the Sustainable Library Certification Program!

Check out the July 26, 2024 article in School Library Journal from their “Reasons to Love Libraries” series: “Librarian Brings Greenhouse, Sustainable Practices to School

screenshot of School Library Journal article

National Climate Action Strategy for Libraries is here!

2023-2024 American Library Association (ALA) President Emily Drabinski made a rather large announcement at the opening ceremony of the 2024 ALA Annual Conference in San Diego, CA yesterday: the release of The National Climate Action Strategy for Libraries and the companion Implementation Guide.

“One of my presidential initiatives has explored how libraries can continue to tackle climate change,” said ALA President Emily Drabinski. “After a decade of advocacy within ALA, we partnered with the Sustainable Libraries Initiative to create a National Climate Action Plan for Libraries. I want to give a huge shout-out to the working group that created both the strategy and the implementation plan to help library workers do all they can in the face of this profound threat to our planet.”

In October 2023 we convened the National Climate Action Strategy Working Group* – a truly remarkable lineup of folks from the profession who have been hard at work to make the “grandest challenge of our generation” actionable in the library community.

Behold, the National Climate Action Strategy and Implementation Guide, produced thanks to a partnership of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative and the American Library Association.

cover of the National Climate Action Strategy for Libraries Implementation Guide

ALA Press Release

SLI Press Release

*National Climate Action Strategy for Libraries Team

Principal Author: Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, Executive Director, Mid-Hudson Library System and the Co-Founder/President of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative (SLI)

Principal Advisors, SLI Advisory Board: Matthew Bollerman, SLI Co-Founder and CEO of the Hauppauge Public Library; Dr. Jen Cannell, School Library System Director at Southern Westchester BOCES and instructor at Syracuse University and St. John Fisher University; Jennifer Ferriss, Assistant Director of the Saratoga Springs Public Library (NY);  and Lisa Kropp, Director of the Lindenhurst Memorial Library (NY)

Principal Advisors, ALA Executive Board: Sara Dallas, Director, Southern Adirondack Library System; and ALA Executive Board Member; Lessa Kananiʻopua Pelayo-Lozada, the Immediate ALA Past President and City of Glendale Assistant Director of Library, Arts and Culture in Southern California; and Christina Rodriques, Senior Program Manager for Member Relations at OCLC and ALA Executive Board Member. 

National Climate Action Working Group Members:

Jensen Adams, Sustainability Manager, City of Kansas City and Chair of the ALA Council Committee on Sustainability; 

Stacey Aldrich, State Librarian of Hawaii and Chair of the ALA Center for the Future of Libraries; 

Tina Chan, Reference Services Program Manager and Humanities Librarian, MIT Libraries and Immediate Past Coordinator of the ALA Sustainability Round Table; 

Beth Filar Williams, User Experience Research librarian at Oregon State University Libraries and Press and Founding Member, ALA Sustainability Round Table; 

Mandi Goodsett, Performing Arts & Humanities Librarian and OER & Copyright Advisor at Cleveland State University and Coordinator of the ALA Sustainability Round Table; 

Susan Hempstead; Assistant Director of Strategic Relations at Sno-Isle Libraries in Washington State; 

Katina Jones, Program Manager, Evaluation & Assessment, Public Library Association

Veronda J. Pitchford, Assistant Director of Califa Group; 

Mary Sauer-Games, Vice President of Global Product Management for OCLC; 

Colleen Seisser, YALSA 2023-24 President, Assistant Director at the Westmont Public Library in Westmont, Illinois; 

Michele Stricker, Deputy State Librarian, New Jersey; 

Eira Tansey, Memory Rising.

SLI at LLX2024 in Baltimore

shown above (l-r): Matthew Bollerman, RSA, Roger Reyes, Jennifer Ferris, Lisa Krop, and Alex Blend

We made it to LibLearnX in Baltimore! The Sustainable Libraries Initiative Team was in full effect at the conference with a booth and a pre-conference. It was awesome to meet so many folks who already knew about the SLI and were hungry to learn more!

WebJunction-SLI Climate Action Series Completed!

Well, now that was something else. Huge thank you to the folks at WebJunction (shout out to JP and Steph! You two are THE BEST!) for the phenomenal opportunity to produce a six-part webinar series with accompanying articles and resources: Sustainable Libraries: Resources and webinars for climate action

logos of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative, WebJunction, and OCLC

Six may have been overkill on my part, it was A LOT of work, but boy was it fun. The guest speakers in some of the webinars are just stellar, I still can’t believe they all said “yes!” when I invited them!

Mandi Goodsett, Performing Arts & Humanities Librarian / OER & Copyright Advisor, Cleveland State University (OH),  ALA Sustainability Roundtable Coordinator, and co-author, “Sustainable Event Planning for Libraries and Library Organizations” in Libraries & Sustainability: Programs and Practices for Community Impact

Evan Meszaros, Research & Engagement Librarian, Case Western Reserve University (OH), ALA Sustainability Round Table and ACRL Science & Technology Section, and co-author, “Sustainable Event Planning for Libraries and Library Organizations” in Libraries & Sustainability: Programs and Practices for Community Impact

Hazel Onsrud, Adult Services Librarian, Curtis Memorial Library (ME)

Jenny Garmon, Civic Engagement Specialist, Kansas City Public Library (MO)

Gabrielle Griffis, Assistant Youth Services Librarian, Brewster Ladies’ Library & Blue Marble Librarian (MA)

M’Balu “Lu” Bangura, Chief of Equity and Fair Practice at the Enoch Pratt Free Library & Maryland State Library Resource Center

*Series Learner Guide

*Webinars in the series:

Sustainability 101
Recording now available

Climate Action Planning (Part 1): An Introduction
Recording now available

Climate Action Planning (Part 2): Disaster Preparedness and Community Resilience
Recording now available

Climate Justice
Recording now available

Living Our Values Out Loud: Programs that Walk the Talk
Recording now available

Stronger Together: Collective Impact and Climate Action Programming
Recording now available

*Series articles

Sustainability 101

Getting Started with Climate Action Planning

Disaster Preparedness and Community Resilience

Climate Justice

Programs that Walk the Talk

Stronger Together: Collective Impact and Climate Action

SDGs and Library Associations Recording Now Available

Here is the link to the recording of the webinar “Sustainable Development Goals and Library Associations: North America.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjCFntgIDHw

This is the first event from a webinar series featuring different regions of the world presented by IFLA’s Management of Library Associations Section (MLAS) in collaboration with the New Professionals Special Interest Group (NPSIG), the Environment, Sustainability and Libraries Section (ENSULIB), and the IFLA Regional Divisions.

That time Bill McKibben talked about LIBRARIES!

That time we got to share the stage with Bill McKibben and he talked about LIBRARIES! “I think connecting libraries as community hubs for public access is a good idea, and highly relevant. These communities may not be contributing huge amounts of carbon, but they are the places where it’s growing fastest–and more to the point they’re the ones where people are most suffering the effects.” – Bill McKibben https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OTuBawEfE8