This is the first in a series of posts in which we ask libraries around the world about their sustainability policies and experiences. This is a subject of significant relevance here at Cambridge University Press, as we work towards our own sustainability targets.

Interview with Roxanne Missingham, University Librarian, Australian National University [ANU]

Introduction
I am delighted to have this opportunity to talk about sustainability, my university and university libraries. To begin, I would like to take a small journey through the evolution of the concepts of sustainability. Undoubtedly, when the term sustainability is used, our first thoughts are about the environment. Earth hour, green buildings and energy efficiency have been the themes of sustainability over the two past decades. Our focus has been based on a desire to be more responsible to reduce our footprint on this earth as we seek to address challenges of an international as well as local scale. “Think global act local” has been the mantra.

In more recent years, the development of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has placed sustainability within a broader social and economic agenda. For libraries, it enables us to assess and value the contribution we make to support our nation through social, educational, industry and equity lenses. Creating stronger nations through our activities becomes more complex and powerful. Assessing this contribution, in addition to environmental sustainability, can provide a significant framework to consider the value we provide and identify areas for further initiatives.

Does your university have an environmental / sustainability policy?
The Australian National University has a strong environmental sustainability plan. We have yet to develop a sustainable development plan that incorporates the SDGs.
As Australia’s only national university our initiatives have been generated from a sense of national leadership and legislation. The plan, now in its fourth iteration is built around the following themes:

• Culture
• Built Environment
• Energy and Emissions
• Recycling and Waste Management
• Pollution Prevention
• Water
• Transport
• Landscapes and Biodiversity
• Heritage

The fundamental plan is unashamedly about the environment, including our buildings and is led by the division responsible for buildings and the campus environment. Implementing it has resulted in mixed successes for the libraries.

One of the major goals has been to reduce energy consumption. For our sector this is challenging. Our major libraries are open 24 x 7 for student use; the collection storage for archives and library materials is generally without environmental controls; and balancing the desire to reduce cost with ensuring user and staff comfort and collection security is difficult.

The framework has inspired an exemplary sustainability study on the JB Chifley Library, the most heavily-used of our libraries. The study showed that the aged infrastructure required urgent repairs to the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, windows and roof. LED efficient lighting has now been installed and the HVAC system has been improved. The report that came out of the study provided us with an excellent blueprint, but much more work needs doing, particularly to the roof and windows. The building is inadequately insulated, too.

Is there a special role for the Library in the stance taken by your university?
Within the Library and Archives, sustainability is a concept we hope to use to drive development of better, more efficient facilities. However, the university’s funding model means that we have only limited ability to take a planned approach to building maintenance.

Ironically, disasters have been the catalysts for our greatest successes. Major work has been undertaken in recent years at the JB Chifley and Menzies Libraries. The Menzies Library opened in 1952. By 2018, the roof, windows and walls had deteriorated significantly and internal waterfalls and energy inefficiency were unwelcome features. The windows and roof in the main part of the building were replaced. Its energy efficiency levels have improved significantly and water damage to its collections has been reduced. Similarly, the JB Chifley Library was completely rebuilt after the flood of 2018, which resulted in the sad loss of 300,000 volumes of print works.

Our next challenge will be to apply the SDGs to every aspect of running the Library, in spirit as well as in letter. Understanding the social value of our work and the broader contribution we make will give us a fresh perspective on how we can contribute to the success of the University, the value of the nation’s capital and our information footprint.

The Library as curator
The concept of a sustainable collection is a major area of discussion between the Library and our academic community. A significant part of the collection was lost to the flood; restoration has involved a combination of the physical and the digital. Saving collection space and the environmental footprint through a focus on digital collections has been balanced with the cultural concerns expressed by our Humanities and Social Science faculties. History and Philosophy were the disciplines that lost most stock to the flood – disciplines with quite different views on digital resources.

Because we have had to think about how our patrons relate to the collections, the issues of boundaries and relationships has taken a new turn. Traditionally we have sought to retain as much physical library stock as possible, using Interlibrary Loan as a last resort. Now we have moved to patron-initiated and demand-driven e-book acquisition, we rely less on Interlibrary Loan and instead focus on enabling as instant access as possible to resources as they are needed. We are purchasing less print and relocating some print collections to store them more efficiently.

Increasingly, we are availing ourselves of open access resources acquired through institutional repositories. In turn, we contribute by populating our own IR with digitised theses and engage in special collection digitisation projects. By opting for digitised resources we have reduced the energy cost of retrieval. Usage statistics show improved benefits for our patrons.

Looking at our activities through an SDG lens, the increased accessibility we have created improves the equitable dissemination of knowledge both within and beyond our university and our nation.

How can publishers and other suppliers help?
Undoubtedly continuing to rethink and transform the collection is vital for future sustainability. While there are concerns about how “green” computers can be, delivering access to collections digitally reduces energy and improves the social and economic benefit derived from libraries.

From this perspective, working closely with publishers on retrospective digitisation, sustainable pricing and user-friendly platforms will reap great benefits. It is timely to reflect on how we might now be able to tackle issues that reach across the diversity of publishers and disciplines. For example, could we break down some of the barriers surrounding records so they can be shared through federated search systems? This would be an important way of demonstrating value within the broader SDGS.

Increasingly we are focusing on sustainable pricing and access. We know that this year’s budgets will present challenges. Important conversations need to take place with publishers so that we can devise a sustainable way through the difficulties for us all. Our consortia have played their part by negotiating fair prices and ensuring some equity of access to content. The next imperative will be to rebalance access yet further and adapt to the Open Access “push”. It is timely to consider what kinds of collaboration can be achieved between libraries and publishers beyond the purchase of content and cost per download.

Covid-19
Thank you to Linda for offering challenging questions, particular to seek to unpack COVID 19. The reality of living in a time when all teaching in a university is done online is something most of us have never seen before. It is unlikely that when we all return to our campuses we will go back to the “old ways”.

What have we discovered in terms of sustainability issues during this period?
Physical collections have traditionally formed our core value proposition, not least from the perspective of our patrons. Now digital collections have become the core.
Many of the works we have in physical form do not have digital equivalents, despite the best efforts of publishers.

Cambridge University Press has been outstanding in opening up its content with extensive digitisation. Other publishers, particularly in specialist disciplines such as law, have taken a more limited view.

What would the world of libraries look like if we had built our services and collections from day zero of COVID 19 lock down? Could we use that premise to undertake transformative actions with publishers to create a better and more sustainable collection?

Most fundamentally, change must happen to support the emerging hybrid teaching model. We will need to look at legacy material as we cannot teach from the resource set currently available digitally. We will need to work with academics also to create new resources. This is surely an opportunity to go beyond thinking of digital as merely an alternative format. It is time to innovate by harnessing new technologies and exploring new sources of content.

Conclusion
University libraries sit within organisations that are grappling with new ways of teaching and research. The challenges have been magnified by COVID 19. The concept of sustainability, applied to physical infrastructure from an environmental perspective, needs to evolve to incorporate social and economic value, building on the SDGs.

Rethinking the collection creates a new opportunity for libraries and publishers. Our existing collections in many ways represent history, with all its gender and cultural biases. How we work together to think beyond individual institutions and budgets could create extraordinary research and teaching infrastructures with new ways of creating and funding extraordinarily scholarly works.
Bringing our best to this is vital.