How Green Is My Library?

An item I saw circulating on Twitter the day of its publication, just landed in my email. I enjoy receiving email from my former colleagues and my friends in libraries about what’s going on because I think libraries are important, but in crisis.

What was particularly interesting about this email was that those who had read it and circulated it seem quietly pleased by the validation of the virtue of libraries implied in this Op/Ed piece in the New York Times. Its closing reads, “All in all, the most ecologically virtuous way to read a book starts by walking to your local library.”

“Useful in linking the public library to the sustainability agenda.” and “A little article you could print off and post at the library.” (1) are comments that were appended as it made its way to me. Which was the thing that set me off.

Really Public Library? Is this the best you can do to advocate for the library and its relevance in our modern world? Circulating an Op/Ed from the New York Times and saying, “See, we’re also kind of green”?

Sorry guys, this is weak. In a lot of ways.

Aside from the logical syllogism (books are sustainable, libraries have books, therefore libraries are sustainable) there is nothing else to say that it would be useful or even wise to view this item as useful in your communications.

In making this logical error, actual questions and answers about library sustainability are conveniently side-stepped:
• Books are printed and bound in places some distance away from libraries. Especially now that libraries do not maintain their own binderies, shipping books and their replacements is surely a significant factor in library sustainability.
• Books are treated and stamped in libraries with ink products, plastics, adhesives, magnetic tape, and specially printed barcodes, the impact of which is not explored (but if your library has around a million volumes I am sure there’s significant environmental toll).
• Many libraries, are organized in multiple locations and in order to serve their public, physical volumes must be moved around between locations daily via truck which must have some further effect on air pollution.
• Library operations are intensely electrical in nature. Lighting, computers, air conditioning, alarm systems, archival air conditioning, escalators, elevators and conveyor systems, surely this energy consumption must have some sort of impact. Especially where coal burning electric generation is in use.

Until you know that these things are sustainable, you’re simply asserting that because you have a big pile of books, you’re magically green.

But I am afraid what’s even worse in this proposition, is that the ENTIRE notion that libraries are somehow green is predicated on this simple idea: Libraries are repositories of books.

Great. You expect that kind of argument is going to sustain and grow the library role in our society over the long term?

Your stance is “See we’re still relevant.” rather than “Of course we’re relevant.”; your idea is “We deal in objects” as opposed to “we deal in information, knowledge and understanding”; and your opinions are somebody else’s.

This is a formula for success and a strong future? Did a library commission this research or conduct it themselves? Did a library even ask “Is being green a critical function of this institution? How does this fit with other civic initiatives?” (in Vancouver I know it does) and “Where are we situated in relation to this?”. They are happy to agree with others’ assertions instead of leading with questions in order to discover answers.

The rise of electronic media is Information and Library Science’s Black Swan. Their focus on physical objects as the vehicles and repositories of knowledge has left them apparently helpless in defining the agenda for libraries when it’s most crucial. Whether we call it the Information, Knowledge or Ideas Economy I would imagine that these specialists would be crucial to our society. Instead they are increasingly marginalized by software and hardware engineers who are working ceaselessly to categorize the world’s knowledge and deliver it in a real and personal way.

So beyond the argument about whether libraries are green, is what it reveals. It’s something far more fundamental. If others are setting the questions and agenda; if you accept and conflate un-verified assertions; and you leave deeply held assumptions around libraries as object repositories unquestioned; then there is a crisis of imagination and leadership in libraries. And I think it could be terminal.

1. This in itself is a sad commentary of how people imagine library communications should work. (↑ return to reading)