In collaboration with SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise), the library will be selling the “Save Our World” water bottles for $5 all week (Monday December 5th through Friday December 9th).
Stop by the Circulation Desk and pick-up the cheapest, most environmentally friendly bottle on campus! You can even pay with your Royal Card!
The Weinberg’s Green Team participated in a trail clean-up Saturday morning along their adopted section of the LHVA Heritage Trail. The team worked for two hours and made it through half the trail. In that short amount of time, they succeeded in filling 9 bags of garbage, several bags of recycling, a pile of metal, and a tire! Their adopted section is the CNJ portion and runs from 7th Avenue, along the South Side Sports Complex, to Elm St. The team will be planning more clean-ups in the future. Visit our Flickr page for more pictures from Saturday!
This year marked the second year the library celebrated Earth Week in order to raise awareness about sustainable issues…
Even though I’m happy to report our structural engineering skills have improved from 2010; unfortunately, our sustainable use of paper did not. However, the increase paper usage is likely because all computer labs on campus have eliminated student printing. Considering almost all students (excluding personal printers) were sent to the library to do their printing, its probably safe to say our “paper awareness” and educational outreach efforts throughout the year had probably payed off.
The good news is that immediately after Earth Week we installed double sided printers throughout the building. Part of the credit for double sided printers should be given to the anonymous student who wrote on our 2010 Earth Week student suggestion page which asked “How should the library Go Green in 2010?”
For Earth Week 2012 we fully expect the paper tower to be a fraction of the size of it’s ancestors thanks to a combination of duplex printing and outreach by the Green Team.
The “wasted paper” display is a tough comparison for a number of reasons. In 2010, we didn’t have the clearly labeled WedgeCycle recycling bins throughout the building and by and large most people weren’t sorting their recyclables. So, paper that otherwise might have ended up in a trash last year is now being properly placed in a paper recycling bin this year. Also, this year we did 10 days worth of recycling whereas last year we did 7 days.
Speaking qualitatively, it would seem that this years “wasted paper” display was an improvement over last years. It was approximately the same amount of paper, but there was no trash mixed in with the paper.
Curbing the amount of wasted paper, unnecessarily duplicated prints, and print jobs left at the printers is definitely a priority for the Green Team.
New for 2011, we had a Craft Night where students, staff, and faculty had a chance to come to the library to make Origami figures out of reused book covers. Pictured above is a display of some of our masterpieces.
This year we hosted our first ever Environmental Art Show as an alternative way to educate about sustainable issues and to reach out to the community. Considering this was our first time hosting an Art Show, we think it turned out pretty good. We are looking forward to see what Environmentally themed art our Students, Staff, and Faculty will have prepared for next years Environmental Art Show! Click the following link for more pictures from the Reception for the Environmental Art Show.
In this poster we displayed all of the library Green Team’s many accomplishments. Some of which include the selling of Reusable Water bottles at the same price it cost us to make them, the installation of a Water Bottle Filling Station, the installation of double-sided printers, tri-colored recycling bins, the adoption of a section of the LHVA’s Heritage trail, collaborating with the Communications department to make Sustainability PSAs which air on our TVs, and collaborating with students for their poster board session at the University’s Sustainability Fair.
The Green Team knows it has a lot of work to do if we are going to to accomplish as much as we did in our first year, but we welcome the challenge!
From Left to Right: Allison Maury, Kelly Williams, and Jenna Caserta. (Missing from the photo Brianne Gallagher).
A group of students from Dr. Jessica Nolan’s Social Psychology class stand next to their informational poster. The poster was presented at the University’s Earth Day Fair and the group spread awareness about living sustainably. In particular, the girls concentrated on the use of disposable water bottles and the benefits of purchasing a reusable water bottle.
The students collaborated with the Library’s Green Team and used the “Save Our World” BPA-Free reusable bottles as an example of what can be done to reduce the use of disposable water bottles.
The Library Green Team thanks these students and Dr. Nolan for all their hard work!
The Reception for the Environmental Art Show will be held tonight (Monday April 18) from 7 to 9pm. Please come by the Heritage Room (5th floor of the library) for a chance to meet and greet the artists. The Reception is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served at this event.
Foursquare users should be sure to check in to the Library each time they visit – our Mayor wins a free Library water bottle!
So far, we’ve had 87 check in a total of 570 times. Our goal is to be more popular than the DeNaples Center, where 134 people have checked in 936 times.
Keep an eye out for other Foursquare specials on campus – they’re coming soon!
The Weinberg Library’s Green Team met yesterday to talk over some new ideas and projects. Here’s a taste of what we have in store for the next few months:
Many thanks to all of the students, faculty, and staff who have been giving us suggestions on making the Library greener!
Too often, we see students printing out page after page of PowerPoint lecture slides, with just a few words on each page. Why not save money AND save paper by printing multiple slides per page?
The Weinberg Library Green Team will be posting these fliers (printed on reused paper, naturally) around our computer labs to remind all of our students and patrons to be conscious of how much they’re using. If you have any trouble with mutiple-slide printing, just ask for help at the Reference Desk!
You might have seen in one of our earlier posts that the Weinberg Memorial Library recently started a Green Team. We’ve wasted no time getting started on making the Library a more sustainable place to study and work.
This month, the Library purchased new WedgeCycle recycling bins to encourage our patrons to separate their recyclable paper, bottles, and cans from other non-recyclable waste. We’re hoping that the bright colors (blue for bottles & cans, green for office paper, brown for trash) and clear labeling will remind everyone to think before they toss.
You’ll find our new recycling bins on each floor of the Library. We’ve put them in what we think are the most convenient locations for students – so if you see someone about to throw away a plastic bottle or a stack of office paper, please remind them to look for the recycling station instead of the trash can!
Earlier this week, a group of Weinberg Memorial Library staff and faculty members took a break from our regular Library work to brainstorm about what we could do to make our Library more sustainable. We came up with a lot of great ideas, from water bottle refill stations to cutting down on paper memos. And there are even a few things that we’ve already started doing – our Physical Plant staff uses green cleaning products to keep the Library neat and shiny, and we’ve begun a switch to more energy efficient lighting.
At the end of the meeting, we formed the first ever Weinberg Memorial Library Green Team. Sixteen members of the Library staff and faculty volunteered to participate, and those members represent nine of the Library’s different departments: Administration, Archives, Cataloging, Circulation, Digital Services, Media, Reference, Serials & Acquisitions, and Systems. We also hope to have a representative from Student Government join us.
Throughout the next few months, the new Green Team will be starting to implement our ideas. Check back here at Infospot @WML for the latest news, and please comment if you have any suggestions for us!
P.S. If you’re interested in what’s happening with sustainability on the University of Scranton campus, take a look at the University’s Task Force on Sustainability web site.
