CURRENT POSITION Adult Services Librarian, Curtis Memorial Library, ME DEGREE Master of Science, Energy and Resources, 2011; Master of Information Management & Systems, 2009; both University of California, Berkeley FAST FACT Despite her best efforts, Onsrud is a terrible speller. FOLLOW curtislibrary.com/library-of-things Photo by Michael A. Foley

Climate Crusader

Since she was young, Hazel Onsrud has worked to minimize her personal footprint as a kind of “zero waste” crusader. As the adult services librarian at the Curtis Memorial Library (CML) in Brunswick, ME, she is a passionate advocate for sustainable living, developing programming focused on sustainability to help her community discover how best to improve their environmental impacts.

Six years ago, Onsrud helped create CML’s Library of Things, a collection of more than 500 circulating items—everything from an apple peeler to a Zen garden set—that meet residents’ diverse needs. The collection has been used in a variety of sustainability programs ranging from community meals to transforming lawns into gardens. Onsrud works with various groups to ensure that the resources qualify under a sustainability lens of planet repair, environment/ecology, fair share/economy, and people care/equity; the collection was originally designed to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The Library of Things helped Onsrud position her institution to become Maine’s first certified sustainable library through the Sustainable Libraries Initiative, for which she now serves as a volunteer mentor for other Maine librarians.

While environmental responsibility is a major focus of her work, Onsrud recognizes how sustainable solutions address broader social and economic challenges. She collaborates with local groups working with refugees and asylum seekers, in addition to supporting organizations focused on affordable housing and unhoused populations. Onsrud’s ability to forge long-lasting partnerships with community members has resulted in hundreds of programs addressing issues such as community organizing, food, social justice, traditional skills/making, and digital literacies. Onsrud led her team from the library through a training series on pillars of sustainability, focusing on areas such as collective impact, social cohesion, financial sustainability, and energy use.

Her program series, called Growing Literacy, involves partnering with land trusts and local farms to provide practical instruction on topics such as caring for trees, aerobic composting, attracting pollinators, and biodynamic gardening. Onsrud continued these programs virtually throughout the pandemic, asserting that “folks come to libraries both to engage and to escape, so we try to both meet them where they’re at and provide multiple ways for them to take meaningful action. Libraries have amazing potential to scale equitable climate-friendly actions. Together we can make a difference."