Five Ways Libraries Can Go Green for Spring

1. Plant a Micro Garden

Gardens are great educational tools for teaching children and adults alike about where their food comes from. Micro gardens can be easily created out of old coffee cups, baking pans, or even planters brought indoors. Herbs are a perfect choice to grow in your micro garden, and can grow year-round. Hang them by windows, or display on bookshelves to bring the Springtime indoors!

2. Create a Seed Library

 Seed libraries are all the rage right now, and are excellent ways to promote home gardening and sustain agricultural diversity. A seed library is a perfect sister-program to a micro-garden, and encourages patrons to share the bounty of their gardens. Libraries can work together with local farms and community gardens to initiate the inventory and to educate gardeners about how to collect and store seeds so they can be returned at the end of the season. With a seed catalog and a planting calendar, you will be all set to start your community seed garden! Check out this blog for more information on how to start a seed library http://mrbrownthumb.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-start-seed-library-in-your.html

3. Create a "Green" Display for Earth Day

Earth Day is fast approaching on April 22, and is the perfect opportunity to display green-related materials. Topics could include environmental groups, recycling, agriculture, renewable energies, and even the color green (who doesn’t love an excuse to display Green Eggs and Ham?). Include some fliers with local recycling information, and your library is bound to be one of the greenest spots in town!

4. Host a "Stuff Swap"

Stuff Swaps are great ways to re-purpose unwanted items within a community. Almost everyone has clothing, books, CD’s, DVD’s, furniture and electronics that they no longer use, but haven’t found a better purpose for yet. Whether the swap focuses on specific items or stuff in general, participants will walk away with something new, and will know that their old items are going to a good home. Items left over at the end of the event can be donated to local charities, thrift stores, or homeless shelters. 

5. Re-purpose Library Books

Every library has books they no longer use, but what happens to them? Many end up in paper recycling receptacles, while some meet their unfortunate end in a dumpster. While many libraries are looking for environmentally responsible ways to handle these materials, they are also finding themselves to be one of the main repositories for books donations by the public. All these books can be overwhelming! Book sales are a staple of just about every library's yearly calendar, but inevitably, when the sale ends, a number of books still remain. Working with B-Logistics is the perfect solution to solving the problem of having too many weeded and donated books. B-Logistics will list salable books in the online marketplace, donate appropriate materials to charity partners, and responsibly recycle the rest! Visit www.blogistics.com to find out more!

In the City of Library Love, PLA 2012

What do you get when you take publishers, audio companies, software providers, library service companies and put them all in a room with hundreds of excited librarians? The 2012 Public Library Association Conference!

                  The B-Logistics team spent last week exhibiting at the PLA Conference in Philadelphia, and had a great time! We attended a lovely reception held by the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (ALTAFF) where we chatted with their staff and told them how excited we are to be Silver sponsors again.  Here we also had the opportunity to meet and chat with the American Library Association’s executive director, Keith Michael Fiels. These groups provide vital support to libraries, and B-Logistics is so pleased to be working with them to better serve libraries across the country!

                  During the conference we saw librarians from many of our current clients, from New York Public Library to the Gail Borden Public Library from Elgin, IL. We also enjoyed meeting staff from hundreds of new libraries, and discussing their collections management issues. Each library has a unique situation, and PLA 2012 reminded us of this. Some are undergoing large weeding projects which create huge (but anticipated) inventories of excess materials, while others are struggling to handle the large amounts of donations that come from their generous community. Another situation that is unique to each library is its partnership with its Friends of the Library group. Some libraries give all of their discards to their Friends for sales, and some Friends sell only donated books. No matter the relationship, B-Logistics wants to work with every library and FOL to sell, recycle, and donate their excess materials!

To find out more about B-Logistic’s services, please visit our website at www.blogistics.com.