#1 Words of hope

Jo Illsley, Senior Library Assistant, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Trust 

Morning Keynote 

Baroness Natalie Bennett gave a fantastic talk to start off the conference. The Green party peer is a great advocate of libraries and has just written a book “Change Everything” and spoke on how society itself must change to deal with the climate emergency. I was particularly inspired by her words of hope, and of how we should try to imagine a world where everything has worked out alright, and to stop filling culture with books/media/films around post-apocalyptic visions and zombies (although I am partial to the odd zombie movie!) Once we have that vision of hope, we can be more inspired to take action to prevent climate change. She emphasised the fact that there are enough resources in the world for everyone if we shared them fairly, and we needed to accept that society needs to change, and is changing, and that libraries can play a huge part in it as sources of information and hubs of the community.  

Strategies to Sustainability 

I listened to a fantastic talk around some sustainability actions in the British Library and Glasgow Women’s Library. Our presenters from Scotland didn’t have as much luck as me with the trains, ironically due to extreme weather disruptions, and presented from Zoom. Catherine Ross, who is the sustainability lead at the British Library, presented on the work they had done, including solar panels and thermal tube installations, removal of single-use coffee cups and other initiatives detailed in their Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy 2024-2030. (bl.uk/about-us/). It is evident that they are taking sustainability issues seriously by the fact that Catherine’s specific role has been created. I also think how they approach the issues in 2 ways is highly effective, by 1. Making the library itself sustainable and 2. By using their voice to encourage and inform others. Leading by example. 

Annika Norrvik and Caroline Gausden then spoke from the Glasgow Women’s Library, on how they have looked at the building they are in (a previous Carnegie building) and are retro-fitting this to make it more energy efficient. This to me was fascinating, and it was interesting to hear about the history of the library, and how it had grown from grass roots beginnings, linking to Natalie Bennetts earlier discussions on grass roots social movements. They also work in what they call “clusters”, groups of people working together and collaborating, using expertise to get work done, and that their “green cluster” had helped with some of their initiatives and had inspired more community involvement. This collaborative and teamwork aspect is something I will take back with me. I was also inspired by their repair hubs (although I don’t think our library would support sewing machines!) 

Plenary Presentations 

Yvonne Morris spoke about the Green Libraries Self-Assessment Tool, which was something I was already aware of through the community of practice. I found this especially useful, and it really helped me focus on where to take my own actions within the library next. Yvonne spoke about developing local policies and action plans, and I think this will be something I need to look at for our library, linking to our organizational goals, to the Quality Improvement framework and to our own mission statement. It is important to have that measurement, and we were reassured this wouldn’t be too arduous and it had to be above all useful.  

Vicky Clarke gave a passionate talk about the Blackpool eco-hub, which was very inspirational. Here it was great to see how libraries and information hubs could make a real difference to people’s everyday lives and really support the most deprived in our communities by helping people to save money and also help the planet. This also gave me lots of inspiration on aspects that I could introduce within our own service, and potential collaborations. 

Laragh Quinney, who had recently spoken to our community of practice meeting, talked about the Carbon Literacy Training for Libraries. I have already done some training through our Trust but can really see the value in a specifically developed programme for libraries. It is always useful to have relatable examples, and it was explained that consultation on the programme was wide, across the sector. During the Q+A section, it was asked whether digital content would be included, and it is and is being developed, which is fantastic as more libraries move services towards the digital formats, and there was an appeal for any contributions to the training examples in this area. 

Afternoon keynote 

Rachael Brown from the University of Portsmouth and a small cohort of MA Architecture students spoke about a recent project “HopePunk in the City” and bringing ideas on sustainability, environment, and imagination and “hope as an act of resistance” to real life installations around Portsmouth. The students spoke on their ideas and processes and how the project had inspired them and changed/reinforced their views on sustainability, resources, and the ecosystem, and how, like Natalie mentioned, we must be able to visualize and imagine what we want from our environments to inspire positive action. As someone with artistic leanings myself, I found the ideas and artistic processes interesting, and there was also a chance to view these up close on the stand they had in the foyer area. 

My takeaways and actions 

Hope was a common theme in all the talks, and the fact that even the small steps can make a big difference. Libraries should be an exemplar for sustainability as people look to us as trusted sources of information and central to our communities. 

Actions: 

• Putting it on paper – I need to create action plans/policies in line with our own and the Trust goals, as part of our commitment to the green manifesto 

• Ideas to take to the library – The eco-hub in Blackpool was inspirational, maybe we could create our own virtual/miniature version? Also keen to explore the discontinuation of single-use paper cups. The event also inspired me to reach out to collaborate, so I might discuss some ideas with our sustainability/wellbeing team. 

• Try to look at possible external funding sources, to put things into action.