Western Libraries is located at Western Washington University, in Bellingham, Washington. Western (WWU) is a publicly-purposed university, and is committed to sustainability.
Western Washington University has demonstrated a
commitment to sustainability though the signing of the University Presidents’
Climate Commitment, and the establishment of a campus Office of Sustainability
(OS). WWU is also a member of the American Association of the Advancement of
Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and home of the highly-regarded
Huxley College of the Environment. Consequently, Western Libraries’ involvement
with sustainability efforts supports the organizational goals of the University,
and contributes to the cultivation of Western’s institutional identity.
Western Libraries’ currentstrategic plan emphasizes the desire to develop and strengthen opportunities
for partnerships throughout the campus and the community, and it also
articulates the need for creating and maintaining “sustainable” physical and
virtual environments that can “enhance barrier-free access, a diversity of
scholarship, and the pursuit of life-long learning by the citizens of
Washington State.”
Libraries are founded on
principles of sustainability in that they seek to provide equal access to
information for all people, and they do this by sharing and re-using resources.
In addition, academic libraries are interdisciplinary in nature, which means they
are both the physical and virtual meeting place for every department and
discipline on campus. Western Libraries’ mission
statement explains our potential role in helping strengthen WWU’s campus
commitment to sustainability: “Western
Libraries connects: people to people, people to place, people to learning.”
A sustainable community
requires connections, and “connections mean relationships with human beings." A
sustainable community relies on and creates strong and lasting bonds between
people and institutions, and these relationships and bonds are what ultimately
determine how “sustainable” something truly is.[i]
Western Libraries’
“Sustainability Team” was officially created in March 2012, with the goal of
exploring opportunities for collaborating with students on a Green Energy Fee
(GEF) grant project proposal, and developing a relationship with the Office of
Sustainability so that we could become more involved with sustainability
efforts at WWU. The Office of
Sustainability has been an invaluable resource for Western Libraries by
partnering with various library and Learning Commons departments to assist us
with our participation in the Sustainable Office Certification Program, in addition to being a constant source of help,
encouragement, and inspiration. We look
forward to continuing to work closely with them, and hope we can provide
support for all of the good work they are doing.
[i]
Barbakoff, A. and Barbakoff B. (2012). Building
Green: Sustainable Thinking Goes Beyond Green to Unite Library Space and
Community. Greening Libraries, (ed.
by Antonelli, M. and McCullough), M. Los Angeles: Library Juice Press).
No comments:
Post a Comment