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Time to hit the books! Borrowing from a library—whether you're a civilian lit-lover on the hunt for the newest Joyce Carol Oates tome or a student tracking down research materials for a paper on biofuels—will save precious resources and a bit of green in your wallet. In most cases, joining a library is free so if you aren't already a card-carrying member, now's your chance to save a tree (or 20).

How to borrow from libraries

• Brushing up on the Dewey skills. Worry not, libraries have not become obsolete in the age of e-books and rapid-fire bloggers. In fact, technological advances have only made libraries more accessible to those once intimidated by the cryptic language of Melvil Dewey's Decimal System. Libraries now maintain electronic catalogs that are available for browsing, both in the physical library and at home via free search engines like WorldCat. Additionally, many library systems have websites that allow members to remotely check-out, reserve, or request books and other media (helping you avoid that fuel-intensive drive back and forth). In some cases, you can even have an item delivered. If you find library e-loans daunting and would rather make the pilgrimage to the library yourself, a trained librarian—not a computer—will be happy to point you in the right direction.

• Late fee? What late fee? Can't tear yourself away from that stack of tawdry romance novels? Don't fret about setting aside the box of bon bons and hopping in the car. Many library systems allow you to renew your books online (the low-emissions approach) rather than show up in-person. However, if you're in possession of an in-demand read, there may be a queue of eager readers waiting patiently behind you who you'll eventually have to surrender it to.

• A PA on periodicals. Generally, magazines and newspapers—along with other reading materials such as reference books—must be read at the library and cannot be checked out. Given that magazines and newspapers are responsible for a massive amount of resources and waste, sitting for a spell and reading the house copy in lieu of buying your own is a viable green option. However, consider the impact of traveling to and from a library to read the day's Wall Street Journal or the latest issue of Orion. If you live within walking or biking distance of your local house o' books, it's a non-issue, but if you're driving 20 miles each morning to read the paper... you may want to reconsider. An added bonus: frequenting libraries is a great way to meet eligible bookworms.

• If you do schlep library loans home, make sure they're secured in an eco-friendly tote bag. The circulation desks of some libraries sell reusable bags for a reasonable price.

• This ain't your granny's library. Those who haven't sampled the stacks in a while may think of libraries as being repressive places populated by towering card catalogs, busted water fountains, and austere librarians wearing sensible shoes and disapproving expressions. However, that's not quite the case. To keep up with times, libraries have gone high-tech and gloomy reading rooms are frequently being replaced by green architectural feats. Green Libraries keeps up with this trend. The site maintains a directory that highlights green libraries from coast—the Ossining Public Library in Westchester County, New York, that's heated and cooled by geothermal energy and uses native plants in landscaping—to coast—Seattle's Rem Koolhaas-designed Central Library that's LEED-certified and boasts a rainwater irrigation system, energy-efficient lighting, and more.

• Time-pressed academics and harried students needn't worry if they can't make it to the local library before closing. Questia is a virtual research library open for business 24/7 that boasts thousands of books, scholarly journals, and tools allowing users to take notes and create bibliographies and footnotes. Just think, for a reasonable subscription fee, you can pen an A+ essay on Transcendentalism in literature without even picking up a piece of paper.

• Dónde está la biblioteca? LibWeb lists over 7,700 homepages from libraries—academic, public, state, regional, national, special, and school—in 146 countries. Want to narrow your search? Go to PublicLibraries.com or consult the Yellow Pages.

Borrowing from libraries helps you go green because...

• You circumvent the cycle of environmental strain (think trees, water, and energy) and waste associated with printed paper materials. Each book, magazine, or newspaper you buy comes attached with an eco-impact of some degree—borrowing from and/or reading at a library nearly eliminates it.
• Responsible paper use is not only a hot topic with readers but with publishers, suppliers, retailers, and others working within the publishing industry. Many libraries are also going green by taking sustainable steps in their daily operations.

Libraries—there are around 1 million worldwide and over 139,800 in the US alone[1]—hold tremendous influence. In the US, public library cardholders (around 148,000,000) outnumber Amazon.com customers (around 30,000,000) five to one.[2] American libraries spend around $14 billion yearly to provide their service to these cardholders.[3]

As an organization, the American Library Association encourages "Three E's"—economy, ecology, and equity—in order to achieve sustainable, socially aware communities. Says Donella Meadows, the late environmental scientist and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning column, The Global Citizen: "The average American pays $20 a year in taxes to support public libraries and can save that much by borrowing instead of buying just one or two books. A book that is loaned ten times cuts not only cost but paper use per reader by a factor of ten.”[4]

So how am I cutting paper use?

Books

It's estimated that 30 million trees are used each year for books sold in the US—1,153 times the number of trees in New York's Central Park. In response to the environmental and social damage that stems from book publishing, over 160 publishers have adopted environmental policies or signed The Book Industry Treatise on Responsible Paper Use.[5] Behind petroleum, chemical, and coal products, the manufacture of paper products, including books, emits the fourth greatest amount of carbon dioxide.[6]

Magazines

According to findings by Co-Op America's Magazine PAPER Project, magazine production in the US requires 2.2 million tons of paper on an annual basis. Nearly all magazines are printed on paper sourced from virgin timber—around 5 percent is recycled content paper—resulting in the cutting down of over 30 million trees per year, the use of massive amounts of energy and water, and the generation of pollution.[7]

Newspapers

The amount of virgin fiber used annually for newsprint—around 6 million metric tons—is greater than the book, magazine, and catalog sectors combined. In 2007, the newsprint industry emitted 49 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, consumed 95 million trees, and released 126 billion pounds of wastewater.[8] Twelve million pounds of newspaper waste was generated in 2005, according to estimates projected by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).[9]

External links

• ecolibrarian
• Eco-Libris Blog
• I Love Libraries
• The Green Librarian
• Going Green @ Your Library
• American Library Association - International Sustainable Library Development Interest Group