Gloucestershire County Council has declared a climate emergency and is encouraging people to adopt a more sustainable and climate-friendly lifestyle, Gloucestershire Libraries’ new Greener Together project complements this wider initiative. Here Catherine Chorley looks at how the project began and what it is achieving.

By Catherine Chorley BA Hons MSt PG Dip MCLIP, Vice Chair of the CILIP South West Member Network,

THE launch of CILIP’s Green Libraries Partnership has been very timely. It bolsters our own efforts and demonstrates that the profession is committed to making real, measurable progress towards a more sustainable future, and recognises that, as community hubs and gateways to information, libraries have a responsibility to reflect the ¬social and ethical landscape of the day.

The Green Manifesto launched at the 2022 Conference embeds sustainability at the core of the We Are CILIP five-year strategy and Action Plan, suffusing each other’s objective with this ethos.

Greener Together is about enabling people in Gloucestershire to build sustainability into their lives: helping the planet; helping the community; helping the individual. Many of the events aimed at becoming more eco-aware and living more sustainably are also ideal for people struggling with the cost-of-living crisis: reusing materials, repairing rather than buying new, making your food go further by making the most of leftovers and reducing food waste, and upcycling, swapping or making gifts, decorations and clothes.

Collection development

Gloucestershire Libraries’ Greener Together collection was rolled out at the beginning of 2022. It is also the cornerstone of the wider environmental action of Gloucestershire Libraries and Gloucestershire County Council. The aims of the collection, in line with the wider initiative, include:

To raise awareness about climate change – past, present, and future;

to provide practical ideas about how to mitigate its effects;

to encourage customers to adopt sustainable living;

to promote the benefits of recycling/upcycling/repairing;

to enable people to grow their own food;

to encourage local partnerships.

Every library has its own collection, and they are all very popular. Books have been flying off the shelves – and there have been noticeable ‘peaks’: first during the drought in July and August, and then when there was a lot of global media coverage about flooding elsewhere in the world. The message is now consistent and backed up by science: climate change is here, and we need to stem its progress.

Customers have responded with enthusiasm by attending events, using the book collections, and participating in sustainability drives such as clothing and plant swaps, and charity recycling points.

To complement the non-fiction collections, six libraries have a collection of cli-fi books, and these have also proved popular. Not everybody gravitates towards non-fiction, so it is another way of raising awareness in a different genre.

Greener Together Awards

With collections advocating sustainability and eco-awareness, libraries are now leading by example. Proactive and responsive public libraries have always been central to the communities they serve and are well-placed to highlight the imperative for action on the climate crisis. Gloucestershire Libraries has been tackling the issue both within and without, addressing our own standards, and advocating this to our communities.

With this in mind, Gloucestershire Libraries has been auditing their green credentials according to set criteria, inspired by the NUS Green Impact scheme. Three tiers (standard bronze, silver and gold) have been outlined so that each library can measure its own ‘green’ credentials and have a definitive rubric to guide future progress.

Many libraries have a named ‘green champion’, whose responsibility it is to remain aware of progress regarding the Libraries’ Greener Together initiative, and to galvanise both colleagues and the public to adopt greener practices. All libraries with a nominated champion have achieved at least a bronze award, with many on the way to silver or gold.

Events and engagement

Across the county, library teams have been working with their local communities, forging partnerships, and holding awareness events, helping to embed environmental awareness into existing practices of core library offers.

Nailsworth Climate Corner

Libraries are social spaces, thereby lending themselves well to activity groups and events that can bring people together while highlighting climate issues. Many of Gloucestershire’s libraries hold creative crafting or upcycling events that, between them, cover all age ranges. In the run-up to Christmas, there were ‘green wrapping’ workshops for adults at Quedgeley, Tuffley and Matson libraries, to which attendees brought a couple of small gifts and learned to wrap using upcycled materials such as old ordnance survey maps and music scores that have been withdrawn from library stock.

Tetbury Library also holds a regular Nature Club, during which activities range from making wooden birdfeeders with peat-free compost and compostable fibre pots, making bat boxes, bird boxes, insect hotels and recycled wooden pallet planters, to cultivating a wildflower meadow and planting an oak tree to remember the late Queen, which ties in with the Jubilee ‘Queen’s Canopy’ initiative.

Eco plant pots workshops.

In terms of sustainability also generating frugality, regular events and clubs that focus on using what we already have to its fullest potential rather than putting it to waste include a repair café at Churchdown Library, which takes the library out into the community by happening in a nearby church hall.

Libraries have also held costume swaps for seasonal events and festivities, such as World Book Day and Halloween, and have been trialling a scheme for exchanging good quality workwear to enable less financially secure people to attend job interviews without the worry over being able to afford appropriate clothing.

Plant and produce swaps at Quedgeley and Tuffley libraries have also brought the communities together to learn about how to grow your own produce and reap the benefits of caring for the land. Local ¬allotments and the Women’s Institute were contacted initially to be involved with a plant-swap, which proved so successful that a subsequent event was broadened to include produce as well.

Gloucester Library, being in the city centre, is slightly disadvantaged by a lack of green space outdoors, so staff have instead found other ways to engage with customers. There is a Seed Library, which has proved to be very popular with customers, who keep it operating by donating their own seeds in exchange for what they take. It sits next to the Greener Together book collection, each drawing attention to the other.

Several events have been run in partnership with both the County Council’s Sustainability and Waste team and a local time-bank charity, Fair Shares. Recycling points have been set up, including stamp recycling for the Royal National Institute of Blind People and milk bottle top recycling for the Friends of Water Search and Rescue Team. There is also a collection point for household batteries.

The launch of several Labs (digital and creative spaces equipped with arrays of technology) across the county has enabled other possibilities for capturing people’s ¬interest in living more sustainably. Gloucester Lab held a ‘Make Your Own Eco Plant Pot’ for children aged seven and over with their families. With the intention to make an important point about reusing and recycling materials while making it entertaining and accessible, the description ran, ’The session will be messy, so please wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty and be prepared for a gooey mess.’

It is not straightforward: some library buildings are impractical for certain types of events and can be old and inefficient regarding energy conservation but are ideally placed within communities to act as catalysts regarding more sustainable living. Of course, it is important to acknowledge that for staff and customers alike, this is an ongoing process. We will get things wrong and may not know every answer. We are all learning and working on progress, and we are doing it together.