Building knowledge using the library

Sustainability is a fast moving space … that’s a very good thing since climate change is a monumental challenge. However keeping up to date with the latest thinking can be time consuming and expensive.

I’m a tremendous fan of the library - through it I can access books and periodicals either in physical or eBook form at no cost to me and minimal cost to the planet since the resources are being reused many times over.

What can be a challenge is recording information from the books you’ve read so that you can refer to it long after you’ve returned the book to the library shelves or the eBook checkout has expired.

I’ve included a few notes on what’s worked well for me here. I’m based in Bristol in the UK and we’re lucky to have a fantastic library service. However many libraries offer similar services - I’d encourage you to check your library out and see what they provide.

Benefits

Resource effectiveness

Physical library books are lent out many times over - hopefully defraying the carbon cost of production. We do need to consider the impact of inter library transport - when your reserved book isn’t available in your local branch it neds to be shipped across town from another branch.

Since many books will be shipped between branches at the same time and my local council is transitioning to electric vehicles I’m going to class this as low impact.

Cost

Books are expensive and you’re never quite sure whether they’ll be relevant until you open them. Library books don’t have that risk instead you can do whatever you like