At nearly every talk I’ve given on climate change and libraries over roughly a decade, someone in the audience asks how I remain hopeful in the face of climate scientists’ predictions. I am not, I clarify, hopeful that we will turn the tide on the impacts of climate change—at least not in my lifetime. But I am hopeful that, given the reality of climate change, people will help one another to adapt, restore, and rethink the future.
This hope comes from the efforts to take action, both large and small, that I have seen among my colleagues locally and nationally over the past decade: American Library Association (ALA) members who started ALA’s Sustainability Round Table (SustainRT) in 2013; members of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative (SLI), which launched the same year and partners with ALA frequently; and the 40-plus public, academic, and school libraries certified through SLI’s Sustainable Library Certification Program and the 200 more working toward certification.
Take for instance the Chrisney branch of Lincoln (Ind.) Heritage Public Library, serving a population of less than 600, the first net-zero energy–certified public library in the US. Or New Canaan (Conn.) Library, the first US library to source building materials that ensured no forced or slave labor was used in their production.
Consider Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, Maine, which mapped its Library of Things to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Or Red Hook (N.Y.) Public Library, whose naturalist in residence provides eco-literacy programming for the community.
Embracing sustainability
What does it take for libraries to remain relevant and responsive? This is the question I’ve centered on my entire career. As a consultant for more than 20 years, I helped libraries make the case locally for increased funding; designed and secured funding for new and expanded facilities; and helped library directors and boards carry out their mission.
My long-term sustainability focus and work with my peers, through the New York Library Association first, then through ALA, now through the growing SLI network, is driven by two things.
One is a grave concern for the lives and livelihoods of those who will be impacted by climate change. Which is, by the way, all of us.
The other is the belief that embracing the core value of sustainability that ALA adopted in 2019 inspires investment in libraries, further positions us as leaders, and helps us fulfill our mission to improve the lives of those we serve. We may even save lives.
The triple bottom line
Countering climate change is about more than green supplies and LED light bulbs. This work is entangled in our economic choices and heavily influenced by social equity issues. When you step back you can see almost every facet of modern life contributes to climate impacts that threaten human life, well-being, and the very economy that supercharges the climate crisis as we speak.
When ALA adopted sustainability as a core value of librarianship, a large-scale shift occurred. ALA defines sustainability using the triple bottom line—a balance of environmental stewardship, social equity and human health, and economic feasibility. This is a lens through which to evaluate practices, products, constructs, organizations, and even communities.
The brutality of the climate events we’ve seen just in the past two years is a call to action.
Six years since sustainability became a core value, I see far more libraries living this value and leading the way on sustainability. I see energy and determination, new alliances, new funding, and new understanding of what libraries can mean to their communities.
Still, we have much more to do, and this work only becomes more urgent. The brutality of the climate events we’ve seen just in the past two years—of the wildfires in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui and in Southern California, of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Southeastern US—is a call to action. I urge all of us to join forces and work together to minimize the toll of the next event, which is sure to come.
