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.

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.

A big thank you to the Maryland and Delaware Library Associations for the invitation to keynote their 2024 joint conference. Their theme was right up my alley!

Very grateful to Sandy Hirsh who edited this book, Libraries 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries. Sandy invited me to write this chapter and it was a fun exercise. Sandy and I also recorded a little webcast about the chapter if you’re interested.

Here’s a very happy Sandy!

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!

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

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

I could not be more honored to be invited in to speak at OCLC’s Distinguished Seminar Series this year. OCLC’s reach and impact on our profession is nothing short of profound. The audience they command is pretty intimidating but what an amazing opportunity!

You can check out the recording here as well as the viewing guide that goes along with it.

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 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

I’m delighted to be invited back to the Wild Wisconsin Winter Conference, this time as their opening keynote AND they have a sustainability track! Go Wisconsin!

New Partnership between American Library Association & the Sustainable Libraries Initiative!

I’m delighted to be the lead instructor for the first-ever eCourse from the American Library Association on Sustainability. Thanks to a partnership between ALA and the Sustainable Libraries Initiative (SLI), students will have access to a four-week course on the new core value of sustainability.

Course Description:
Climate change and environmental destruction are a code red for humanity and are this generation’s grandest challenge. In 2019, ALA Council added “Sustainability” as a core value of the profession, adopting the triple bottom line definition of sustainability to ensure balanced decision-making that respects environmental stewardship, social equity, and economic feasibility. As community leaders and facilitators, libraries should be modeling sustainable practices among their staff and within their facilities.

In this special eCourse, Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, President of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative, will lead you through the principles and practices of sustainable librarianship along with a group of expert speakers, lecturers and writers. 

Our ability to pull together as neighbors and adapt in the face of what is already happening while lessening the severity of the impacts for future generations will require us to think differently, to adopt a new mindset, and to consider decisions—large and small—through the lens of sustainability. Libraries of all types are perfectly positioned to help with and to lead in this work. We must step up in this moment and find ways to lead by example and inspire those we serve with and for to do the same.

After participating in this course:

• Students will have a strong understanding of the “triple bottom line” definition of sustainability as adopted by the American Library Association as a Core Value of Librarianship. 
• Students will be able to accurately describe operational decisions, services, programs, and partnerships their library is already undertaking that better position their institutions as sustainability leaders
• Using the “sustainable thinking” model, students will be able to make operational decisions as well as design new services, programs, and partnerships to ensure their institutions are relevant and responsive in the face of the impacts of climate change. 
• Students will understand the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the context of climate justice.

There are 25 free seats in the eCourse for members of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative. All others can register through this link.