Abstract

This study was carried out in order to identify green (environmentally friendly) practices in university libraries in both institutional and individual contexts. Within the scope of this research, descriptive method was used, and also two questionnaires were used as data collection tools from library directors and librarians. Within the frame of the study, online questionnaire was sent to 165 directors and 1614 librarians working in 165 university libraries (out of 182 in total) in Turkey. 45 directors and 341 librarians responded to the survey. The directors’ survey has six main sections including sustainable environment, water saving, energy saving, sustainable resources and materials, indoor air quality, innovation in design and implementation, and aims to collect information on an institutional basis. The librarian survey consists of three main parts which are demographic information, environmental awareness and attitude in daily life, and green libraries. The obtained data were analyzed by IBM Statistics SPSS 23.0 software package. In the study, it was found out that even though university libraries in Turkey fulfill some criteria such as proximity to public transportation, use of alternative options in transportation and water-efficient plumbing, monitoring water use, turning off electrical appliances when not in use, use of double glazed windows, taking precautions against paper waste with recycling or donation of printed resources, there are still deficiencies. Also, differences between universities have been identified in terms of green approaches /implementations and some libraries such as Atılım, Bilkent, Başkent and Yaşar University libraries have been observed to be greener than others within sustainable environment, water and energy saving, sustainable materials-resources, indoor air quality and design and application innovations. Although librarians have a low level of perception and awareness in green libraries and environmental sustainability issues, they have positive opinions about the initiatives promoting education and awareness.

Keywords: Green libraries, green university libraries, green implementations, environmental sensitivity, sustainability, environmental sustainability, university libraries in Turkey

References

  1. Al, R. ve House, S. (2010). Going green in North American public libraries. World Library And Informatıon Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, Gothenburg, Sweden, 10-15 August 2010 içinde (ss. 1-13). https://www.ifla.org/past-wlic/2010/135-al-en.pdf adresinden erişildi.
  2. Alpay Aslan, S. (1994). Çevreci kütüphanecilik. Türk Kütüphaneciliği, 8(2), 83-86.
  3. Antonelli, M. (2008). The green library movement: An overview and beyond. Electronic GreenJjournal, 1(27). 1-11.
  4. Aulisio, G. J. (2013). Green libraries are more than just buildings. Electronic Green Journal, 1(35), 1-10.
  5. Barnes, L. L. (2012). Green buildings as sustainability education tools. Library Hi Tech, 30(3), 397-407.
  6. Cesar Chavez library: Line and space. (2011, 26 Ağustos). archdaily.com. https://www.archdaily.com/163202/cesar-chavez-library-line-and-space adresinden erişildi.
  7. Chowdhury, G. (2012a). Building environmentally sustainable information services: A green is research agenda. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(4), 633-647.
  8. Chowdhury, G. (2012b). An agenda for green information retrieval research. Information Processing and Management, 8(6), 1067-1077.
  9. Chowdhury, G. (2013). Sustainability of digital information services. Journal of Documentation, 69(5), 602-622. doi:10.1108/JD-08-2012-0104
  10. Christinsen, K. (2011). Sustainability in collection development: Seeing the forest and the trees. Against the Grain, 22(6). http://www.Berkshirepublishing.com/assets/pdf/ATG_v22_No6_DecJan2011.pdf adresinden erişildi.
  11. Connell, V. (2010). Greening the library: Collection development decisions. The Journal of the New Members Round Table, 1(1), 1-15. http://www.ala.org/rt/sites/ala.org.rt/files/content/oversightgroups/comm/schres/endnotesvol1is1/3greeningthelibrary.pdf adresinden erişildi.
  12. Edwards, B. E. (2011). Sustainability as a driving force in contemporary library design. Library Trends, 60(1), 190-214.
  13. Ephraim, P. E. (2003). The greeining of libraries. Library Management, 24(3), 160-163. doi:10.1108/01435120310464862
  14. Ertem, D., Henderson, K. ve Kobas, B. (2009). Uluslararası yeşil bina sertifikalarına bir bakış: Türkiye için bir yeşil bina sertifikası oluşturmak için yol haritası. Fifth International Conference on Construction in the 21st Century (CITC-V) “Collaboration and Integration in Engineering, Management and Technology” 20-22 Mayıs 2009, İstanbul içinde (ss. 1-11). https://www.academia.edu/4730959/Uluslararasi_Yesil_Bina_Sertifikalarina_Bir_Bakis_Turkiye_icin_bir_Yesil_Bina_Sertifikasi_Olusturmak_icin_Yol_Haritasi?auto=download adresinden erişildi.
  15. Frey, D. ve Boultbee, G. W. (2012). “Rediscover green” at Red Deer public library. Feliciter, 58(1), 12–14. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/72270719/rediscover green-red-deer public-library adresinden erişildi.
  16. Galster, M. (2010). Life-cycle assessment in software engineering (position paper). http://www.cs.toronto.edu/wsrcc/WSRCC2/papers/wsrcc2010-Galster.pdf adresinden erişildi.
  17. Genovese, P. ve Albanese, P. (2011). Sustainable libraries, sustainable services: A global view. World Library and Information Congress, 77th IFLA General Conference and Assembly içinde (ss. 1-22). https://www.ifla.org/past-wlic/2011/196-genovese-en.pdf adresinden erişildi.
  18. Jankowska, M. A. (2014). Practicing sustainable environmental solutions: A call for green policy in academic libraries. Against the Grain, 22(6), 29-32.
  19. Jankowska, M. A. ve James, Marcum, J. W. (2010). Sustainability challenge for academic libraries: Planning for the future. College & Research Libraries, 71(2), 160-170.
  20. Kaptan, S. (1995). Bilimsel araştırma teknikleri ve istatistik yöntemleri. Ankara: Bilim Yayıncılık.
  21. Kılınç, S. E. (2013). Yeşil kütüphane yaklaşımı. 3. Halk Kütüphaneciliği Sempozyumu, 8-10 Mayıs 2013, Bodrum içinde (ss. 175-181). Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları.
  22. Kurbanoğlu, S. ve Boustany, J. (2014). From green libraries to green information literacy. S. Kurbanoğlu ve diğerleri (Ed.) Information Literacy. Lifelong Learning and Digital Citizenship in the 21st Century, (cilt: 492) içinde (ss. 47-58). İsviçre: Springer.
  23. Küçükcan, B. ve Konya, Ü. (2013). Geleceğe miras: Yeşil kütüphane. 3.Halk Kütüphaneciliği Sempozyumu, 8-10 Mayıs 2013, Bodrum içinde (ss. 167-174). Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları.
  24. LEED Certification: What is LEED? (2018). usgbc.org. https://www.usgbc.org/help/what-leed adresinden erişildi.
  25. Michler, A. (2012). India’s LEED Gold Anna Centenary Library is the Largest and Greenest Library in Asia! https://inhabitat.com/indias-leed-gold-anna-centenary-library-is-the-largest-and greenest-library-in-asia/ adresinden erişildi.
  26. Middletown Thrall Library. (2017). Going green: Sustainable living, eco-friendly advice & alteratives, environmentally-mindful lifestyle & learning resources for individuals, businesses, organizations, and everyone else. http://www.thrall.org/special/goinggreen.html adresinden erişildi.
  27. Mikkelsen, J. (2007). Going for the gold: Building a sustainable LEED library. OLA Quarterly, 13(4), 12-17.
  28. Mulford, M. S. ve Himmel, N. A. (2010). How green is my library? Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited.
  29. National Library Building. (2018). nlb.gov.sg. https://www.nlb.gov.sg/VisitUs/NationalLibraryBuilding.aspx adresinden erişildi.
  30. Project “The Green Library” / Bibliography 1971–2012. (t. y). https://www.ibi.hu-berlin.de/de/studium/studprojekte/buchidee/bi12/bibliography_1971-2012_2013-03-09.pdf adresinden erişildi.
  31. Stark, M. R. (2011). Information in place: Integrating sustainability into information literacy instruction. Electronic Green Journal, 1(32). http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1fz2w70p adresinden erişildi.
  32. SusteIT. (2009). Resources: ICT energy and carbon footprinting tool. http://www.susteit.org.uk/files/category.php?catID=4 adresinden erişildi.
  33. Tallories declaration. (2015). ulsf.org. http://ulsf.org/talloires-declaration/ adresinden erişildi.
  34. Teksöz, G., Şahih, E. ve Ertepınar, H. (2010). Çevre okuryazarlığı, öğretmen adayları ve sürdürülebilir bir gelecek. Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 39, 307-320.
  35. Velazquez, L. (2012). GPW: Delft University of Technology Library. http://www.greenroofs.com/blog/2012/01/11/gpw-delft-university-of-technology-library/ adresinden erişildi.
  36. What is a carbon footprint – definition. (2008). timeforchange.org. http://timeforchange.org/what is-a-carbon-footprint-definition adresinden erişildi.
  37. World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED]. (1987). Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: “Our common future” Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  38. Workshop on Software Research and Climate Change [WSRCC]. (2011). 3rd International workshop on software research and climate change. https://sites.google.com/site/wsrcc2011 adresinden erişildi.
  39. Xuan, W. ve Hongyan, L. (2011). Energy saving and green building design of libraries: The case study of Zhengzhou library. World Library and Information Congress: 77th IFLA general conference and assembly içinde (ss. 1-18). https://www.ifla.org/past-wlic/2011/196-wang-en.pdf adresinden erişildi.

License

Copyright (c) 2018 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to Cite

Akbulut, M., Alaca, E., Büyükçolpan, T., Cevher, N., Kurbanoğlu, S., Soylu, D., & Yıldırım, B. F. (2018). Green (Environmentalist) Approaches to University Libraries: A Research Across Turkey. Information World, 19(2), 203-230. https://doi.org/10.15612/BD.2018.693