Keeping Track of Green Libraries

It's easy being green if you know where to find ideas and inspiration. A new resource is Green Libraries, an online site for creating an environmentally sensitive library. Created by Monika Antonelli, a reference/instruction librarian at the Memorial Library at Minnesota State University Mankato, the web site contains a small but growing collection of materials on building sustainable libraries, from design ideas to building certification. It also includes a brief directory of environmentally savvy libraries, which Antonelli expects to triple from ten to 30 in the coming months.

“I want the library community to be able to use my web site as a place to get ideas on how [to] become green,” says Antonelli, who was inspired by eco-aware tomes such as James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency and Bill McKibben's Deep Economy. “As we enter a time of crisis brought on by energy depletion and climate change,” she says, “I believe that libraries are poised to play a major role in the survival of local communities.”

One way is to lead by example. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Hayden Library, Cambridge, relies on rooftop solar panels to generate 15,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. San José Public Library's West Valley branch, CA, uses natural day lighting and chemical-free fabrics and materials to enhance indoor air quality. The Seattle Public Library's Central Library has rainwater collection tanks that irrigate the trees that provide natural shade and heat reduction.

When Emory University, Atlanta, built the Chandler Library, it used 60 percent recycled building materials, nearly half of which were produced within 500 miles. And the Ossining Public Library, NY, operates with geothermal energy to heat and cool the building. All of these are found in the Green Libraries directory. Other ideas are available at the resources section of the site, which provides links to such organizations as the International Sustainable Library Development Interest Group, American Library Association's Social Responsibilities Round Table Task Force on the Environment, and U.S. Green Building Council.

Antonelli has some radical ideas about the future of libraries, based on the concept of “permaculture” (a combination of permanent and culture), which uses ecology for the basis of designing integrated systems of food production, housing, technology, and development. (In 2005, Antonelli received a “permaculture design certificate” from Earth Activist Training, a seven-year-old environmental organization cofounded by the author and activist Starhawk.)

“Many librarians are not ready to make this paradigm shift with me,” she acknowledges. But she thinks that, by taking these elements into consideration, libraries will continue their natural role on the cutting edge of community services, much as they did in making public Internet access integral to the library's mission.

“I see the environmental and economic changes looming ahead as an opportunity for libraries to develop new and exciting ways that support their local communities,” Antonelli says. “In the future, I would like to see automobile-lending libraries and bicycle-lending libraries. I would also like to see libraries get into the business of archiving genetic material like local seeds. And while we are at it, how about turning the grounds into community gardens? I mean, why not?”