14 March 2009

ACRL2009: Greening Up the Conference

KUDOS ACRL for creating a greener conference and for sharing how you did it! This panel presentation shared the how and the why of greening up the conference. Again, here are my notes. But before you look at them, I wanted to say GREAT JOB to Tory Ondralo, the conference coordinator. Tory is a star and it was her hard work that made this conference a more environmentally friendly place.

Also, this kind of initiative comes from conference attendees demanding it. If you are attending other conferences, ASK what they are doing to go green!

Communicating green initiatives with the conference attendees:
1. Branding (Green leaf logo)
2. Wide distribution through conference literature (C&RL News, American Libraries, Cognotes, Footnotes)
3. Green Pledge = Green water mark on badges
Inform and influence conference behaviors and practices

Is ACRL making any efforts to quantitatively assess the impact of the conference?

The Green Pledge:
Shaping conference behavior. 80% of attendees signed the pledge. AWESOME!
Reduction of Paper: encourage the use of the virtual conference, institutional encouragement to NOT include handouts. A noticeable effort among attendees that ACRL is trying to green up the conference. Recycled paper and soy based ink at no additional cost. Change from a postcard rather than a tri-fold, vendor reductions.
Giveaways: Shower timer.

TORY: All stats on reductions and efforts including costs.

Robin Chase, a green speaker. Sharing books is much like sharing cars. The carshare business model as similar to a library.

Hotels: Hotel Vintage Park. Initiatives the are exemplary. Why did I not stay there?

Only stayed for a half the presentation but such an important issue and the efforts made by the committee and especially Tory Orlandro deserve great recognition and gratitude.

How can we get more presentations about green practices within the library?

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