13. Electricity meter for check-out Shows the operating costs of household appliances Connect an appliance to the Kill A WattEZ and it will assess the efficiency. www.p3international.com/products/p4460.html
14. environmental EDUCATOR ONLINE GUIDE PROVIDES: -- Keywords for searching -- How the library can help -- Websites -- Green products -- Books & movies -- Green activism -- Local information -- Online databases explore.westervillelibrary.org/green
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17. We all have green spaces outside – use them for fun!
28. As the children planted, their plants were marked with their names.
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30. Susan and I met with my landscape architect friend on Friday. Sounds like plans are moving forward! She’s got a space picked out and plans to start with tomatoes, herbs and peppers. Definitely feel free to check with her for more details! Coming this summer: Pizza Garden Ornamental Grasses In the plans: CSA community sponsored agriculture -- joint programs with community gardeners and family growers
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34. Sustainable Landscaping Shade Tree Commission -- Landscape designer -- Rep from County Soil & Water Conservation District -- Nursery Owner
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36. Parks & Recreation Westerville Bike Shop Allstate Insurance BikeSource Library: Pit Stop
39. Create a hiding place Altered Art for the First Time by Madeline Arendt Altered Books Workshop Scrapbooking and More with Found Objects See it on Slideshare
41. The Phenomenal Bee Central OH Beekeepers Assoc. How bees pollinate, make honey & beeswax Crickets, Beetles & Flies, Oh My! OSU Entomology graduate student Do bees have knees? Do dragonflies sting?
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43. Teens participated in a contest to paint the old, wood book carts. Paint and prizes were provided by the Friends of the Library.
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45. Let the public know what you’re doing behind the scenes! . . . and remind them of what you’re doing in public areas!
46. Eco matting is made from recycled plastic bottles. If you have mats like this, let the public know!
50. “ Green is the fen shui color of renewal and fresh energy. The color green is very nourishing to your health as it calms your nerves and balances your whole body by bringing healing vibrations from Mother Nature.” fengshui.com
Notas do Editor
Introductions. We’re happy to be with you this morning to share some of the ways we’re going green in our buildings and programs and invite you to do the same!
In Kathryn Miller’s book Public Libraries Go Green she points out that public libraries are challenged by their communities to go green. We can answer the challenge by demonstrating ways we might lead our community in how we maintain and outfit our facility, in the resources and learning opportunities we make available to our community, and in the partnerships we cultivate.
Your library, like mine, has made pro-environment decisions, as funding has allowed. Our libraries have sought ways to expand our collection beyond books & physical materials and into internet-based offerings that include web pages, databases, eBooks, and social media like Facebook and Twitter. Besides your collection, you can be going green in many other ways—ways your residents will consider you a leader. In Westerville we were approached by the local firm SmartRecycle in ‘06 about recycling cell phones and ink/toner cartridges. We appreciated the assistance they provided by designing a bin to fit our needs and our space. In addition to receiving a quarterly check for the donations we collect, now and then we are selected by area businesses to receive their proceeds. In January our local Verizon Wireless directed their $109 to our library. Our newly leased public printers are more energy efficient than our old ones, capable of going into a sleep mode or powering down altogether after a period of disuse. We now offer duplex mode printing for all print jobs, so patrons can use less paper if they prefer (the price is the same). Our PCs for public use are programmed to shut themselves down at closing and power back up just before we open, in order to save power without committing valuable staff time to the process. You’ve probably started replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights or LED bulbs, maybe pointing out to the public that CFLs use 75% less electricity and last 5-7 times longer. You might be using products for cleaning and painting that are certified as environmentally friendlyGreenerchoices.org or GS-8 standard is the Green Seal certified standard for products. When we make these changes, we often are blazing trails.
High profile improvements are excellent changes to move your Going Green efforts forward. The Nature Bin Square Recycler helped us transition from providing plastic bags to offering recycled bags. We removed the flap and its handle and cut an enlarged opening on the top to make it easier for the public to reach in for their bag. We haven’t purchased plastic bags since the day we positioned this container in the atrium near the checkout desk and the self-checkout stations. The cost was around $70.
We’re hoping to add an item to our collection that will help lead patrons in going green in their homes. A local resident asked if the library would consider being an outlet to loan meters to the public. We are in discussion with our local electric division. We hope that a dozen meters will be donated to the library and we would not be responsible for the loss or destruction of the meters. They are looking at this one – P3 Kill A Watt EZ 4460 – they sell in lots of 24 but they found a wholesaler (Petra.com 1-800-443-6975 ) that sells in lots of 12. $27.98 (12) + shipping of $10, so $350 would cover cost of 12 meters. Marysville PL starting checking out the handheld meters in December – they have 10 that go out for 7-day loan. You figure out what you pay for a kilowatt hour of electricity by doing a little math from the info on your monthly bill. Then, program that figure into the meter, plug the meter into the wall and plug an appliance into the meter. It calculates the cost per hour to run that device.
Today people want to have a conservation ethic: to care about the environment and know what they can do about it. They come to us for direction. We’ve tried to create a one-stop shop for going green information online. The result is this site, one of 64 “explore” guides we’ve compiled and placed on our website. We’ve created these business cards to promote the guides, and, in the process, the rich variety of topics. TEASER FOR ONLINE “GOING GREEN” GUIDE --Want info about energy efficiency? --Wondering how you can make a difference? --Need to research global warming? --Check out this guide!
This bookmark is another method of educating the public with tips to go green, where to look on our shelves to books related to the environment and sustainability and then specific ways that the library is being environmentally friendly.
As part of the library’s salute to Westerville’s 150 th anniversary and to coincide with Earth Day the library held a Greening Westerville Fair. The idea behind the fair was to provide the community with an opportunity to discover ways to go green in their home, yard and business and community.
Our speaker was the department chair of the Sociology Dept. at our local Otterbein College whose areas of specialty were global social change and environmental sociology. She and the students in her Urban Sociology class completed a report that evaluated the relevance of a sustainable community movement for Westerville. She spoke to a group seated in our meeting room and then answered questions from the audience.
After her talk, we invited everyone to follow the green footprints we had taped to the floor leading to the display tables out in the library. We invited 10 organizations and businesses to show ways they have adopted and are encouraging sustainable practices. No fee for a table. Our recycle company for public donations of cell phones and ink cartridges. Raisin Rack brought food samples, brochures and sample products. Ohio Energy Project brought their Energy Bike. By pedaling the bike which is attached to an electrical board, the rider generates electricity to power a variety of light bulbs and small appliances. The rider reads the gauges to measure his or her performance and observes how brightly the light bulbs shine. The more energy a light bulb or appliance requires, the harder it is to pedal the bike. The rider feels firsthand the remarkable difference between how much energy incandescent bulbs take compared to CFLs and LEDs. Local coffee shop owners who specialize in fair trade coffees and teas were invited. Talk about things residents can do in the own backyards to prevent erosion and apply rain garden methods. Herb garden and native plant info from metro garden. Working with these partners, the library was able to put library visitors in touch with environmentally friendly services and products. We opened the door during this spring offering and are working on a fall energy fair.
Created a Children’s Garden directly outside the picture book room, along the main street in Westerville. The garden was introduced in a special storytime in April where children potted their own marigold seeds to take home and nurture.
Children came back to check on the progress and tend to their plant during Garden Club.
Garden is completely organic, and all crafts for the groundbreaking were created using recycled materials. Milk jugs were reinvented as watering cans. Very little funding, about $10 in craft supplies, was spent. The Westerville Garden Club purchased all other materials.
Partnering with a landscape architect friend, the library has plans for a pizza garden this summer. She’s got a space picked out and plans to start with tomatoes, herbs and peppers. Learn the basics and more about ornamental grasses from landscape horticulturist. Ornamental Grasses program featured Public Gardens Manager for Inniswood Metro Gardens showing striking photos and live specimens of diverse grasses appropriate for area gardens. Attendees discovered a wide range of spectacular grasses, the key design elements to consider, the culture, and some do's and don'ts. They also found out what's hot in the garden stores. CSA (community supported agriculture) is very popular now. Some raise eggs and honey, also. Families get involved in CSA programs on a weekly basis. A farm outside our community has 150 roaming hens, dairy goats, bee hives, horses. Local seed farms want to bring fresh, organically grown produce to local farmer’s markets
We invited the Westerville shade tree commission, group of 7 community volunteers who suggest, monitor and report on any actions necessary for the care, selection and preservation of trees, shrubs and other greenery in public ways and areas in our community. New plantings and a wetlands area were being installed at our community’s new outdoor swimming complex. The landscape designer spoke on how sustainable landscaping was used there; the county soil & water conservation rep spoke on how to make sustainable work in your backyard and the nursery owner showed how to select the plants and materials needed for your sustainable project. Brought organic seeds, planting soil and a rain barrel as an eye-catching display for our atrium.
Sometimes green activities and services are in your own backyard! More than 40 miles of bike paths run throughout Westerville and there is a portion of one and a small park that comes near the library. The close proximity to the path and a staff member with experience entering biking events provided an opportunity for the library to partner with Parks & Rec on a Tour of Westerville bike event. Biking adventure for all ages. 3 tours: advanced, intermediate, beginners. First 75 people registered received t-shirts. We hosted the Pit Stop with programs (Exploring Our Trails by Parks & Rec), a storytime, Getting Started in Bicycling with pointers from a local bike store owner, refreshments from our coffee counter, biking equipment displays and programs. Registered riders were entered in prize drawings for bike helmets and bike tune-ups courtesy of a second bike shop in town. Bike adjustments were offered and the group Rails-to-Trails put up a display.
Our pit stop was good way to introduce the idea of the library as a stopping place for riders on the bike path, partner with the city parks & rec representative and encourage bicycling and fitness. A follow-up would be to obtain a supply of the bike path maps from the city for distribution at our site. There are national groups that offer ideas on how your library can help encourage users to walk or cycle to the library. Your library’s closeness to public transportation could open visitors to a need for route maps and schedules.
Book Crafts Planned for May 7, the program is the essence of re-using withdrawn books. Hanging book mobile or a book safe. Tree construct a trunk by stacking five or six narrow books, preferably with brown or neutral covers. Then layer on roughly 12 opened ones (widest first) with the pages facing down. Try green or red covers, or a mix of both. Take a page from a worn holiday book and fashion it into a bow. (Go to realsimple.com/giftbow for easy step-by-step instructions.) Glue a hard candy in the center to add a sweet touch.
Altered books workshop attendees were excited to learn about a new scrapbooking medium and had fun playing with some of the different techniques. We provided lots of old stickers, wallpaper sample books, tissue paper, fortune cookie fortunes as items to experiment with. The library bought glue and Xacto knives.
A good combination of partnership and environmentally friendly program offerings can happen as a direct result of a summer reading program. Catch the Reading Bug statewide collaborative library summer reading program provided us with lots of ideas and plans for programs. Presenters can be local park staff such as the speaker for What’s Bugging You? or other organizations the collaboration of libraries may have contacted.
Furry Flyers All about that amazing mammal, the bat OSU Wildlife Program specialist Local Museums—ask for their education programs department COSI 333 West Broad Street Columbus, OH 43215 614.228.COSI (2674) contact Doug Buchanan, Education Programs Marketing Manager, at dbuchanan@mail.cosi.org or 614.629.3130. Classroom & On-line Activities COSI’s activities support the educational experiences provided in our building and through our programs. COSI's activities align with Ohio Academic Content Standards. http://www.cosi.org/educators/activities/ COSI On Wheels COSI comes to you! COSI On Wheels demonstrates science at schools and special events through programming that supports Ohio Academic Content Standards. http://www.cosi.org/educators/cosi-on-wheels/