A Library Sustainability Paradigm: An Alternative

A Library Sustainability Paradigm: An Alternative
Eliana Trinaistic
Faculty of Information, University of Toronto




In fulfillment for requirements for ENV 5555
Supervisor: Professor Matthew Ratto
April 15, 2010
Abstract
The idea of "sustainability", contrary to its ambiguity has been invading
information grounds rather frequently. Politically and globally conscious
citizens, interested in supporting "sustainable" commerce, finance, art,
and government, have begun to operate in overlapping discourses of
environmentalism, socio- political literacy and education. Literacy and
education, although non-exclusively, are domains of libraries and library-
like environments. Yet, opportunities for libraries to engage with
sustainability related literacy and education have yet to be adequately
explored in pedagogical, environmental or library literature.
To provide an exploratory framework and situate libraries within the
larger sustainability discourse, this paper will review definitions of
sustainability and argue for the implementation of Sumner's three-
dimensional paradigm (2005). Next, libraries'specific sustainability
will be examined through the lenses of socio-political literacy,
sustainable education and oral transfer of knowledge proposing a new
paradigm for library sustainability. To engage a sustainable agenda in
libraries, a socio- political literacy needs to be transformed into
ecoliteracy, education for sustainability in education as sustainability,
and access to oral knowledge as disseminating tool needs to be more
systematically implemented. Several case studies utilizing these concepts
will be described to offer metaphors or solutions that are transferable
to broad library settings.
TABLE OF CONTENTS


Page
ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………………………. II
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………….. 4


1. Sustainability: definitions, paradigms, revisions ……………………………………………
5
2. The first revision: from socio-political to eco-literacy
…………………………………….. 8
2.1 Socio-political literacy and sustainability
……………………………………………….10
2.2 Engaging ecoliteracy …………………………………………………………………… 12
3. The second revision: from education for sustainability to
education as sustainability …….. 13
3.1 Education for sustainability (EFS) ……………………………………………………..
.14
3.2 Education as sustainability (EAS) ……………………………………………………... 15


3.3 Engaging education as sustainability …………………………………………………...
16
4. The third revision: from printed literacy to oral literacy
(traditional knowledge) …………. 18
4.1 The traditional knowledge and sustainability
………………………………………….. 19
4.2 Engaging traditional knowledge ……………………………………………………….. 21
5. Study cases …………………………………………………………………………..…….. 23
5.1 The Human/ Living Library (Europe) ………………………………………………….. 23
5.2 The StoryCorps (the United States) ……………………………………………………. 24
5.3 The Campesino Biblioteca, Cajamarca (Peru) ………………………………………….
25
5.4 On Demand Books Services (Canada) .………………………………………………… 26
5.5 The Toronto Public Library Strategic Plan (Canada)
………………………………….. 27
Conclusion ………..…………………………………………………………………………..... 28




A Renewed Paradigm for Library Sustainability
Introduction
Over half a century of scholarly literature struggling efforts to
provide an undisputed definition of sustainability remained externally
futile and internally exhausting. Only lately the scholars have been
considering of interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary methodologies
although Farrell and Hart maintain that "no one group has the ultimate
authority" over a definite claim and all the definitions (s) will remain
conditional (Sumner, 2005, p. 84). Nevertheless, the idea of
"sustainability" has been used rather abundantly. An upsurge in the number
of politically and globally conscious citizens expressing an interest in
sustainable commerce, finance, art, and government is equally engaging with
discourses of environmentalism, socio- political literacy and education.
Literacy and education, although non-exclusively, are domains of libraries
and library-like environments (variety of institutional or informal designs
storing, classifying and disseminating knowledge, referred throughout the
paper as "libraries"). Yet, the opportunities for libraries to reverberate
and engage in "reading and writing" sustainability have yet to be
adequately explored in environmental, political, library or pedagogical
studies.
To provide one of the potentially useful exploratory frameworks and
situate libraries within the discourse of sustainability, this paper will
argue for the implementation of Sumner's three-dimensional paradigm (2005).
Next, libraries' specific opportunities for fostering sustainability will
be examined through the lenses of socio- political literacy, education and
oral cultures. This exploration will guide further to propose an
alternative, renewed paradigm for library sustainability. Specifically, to
engage a genuine sustainable agenda in libraries socio-political literacy
needs to be transformed into ecoliteracy, education for sustainability to
education as sustainability, and written and printed knowledge to be
enhanced by elements of oral/ traditional knowledge both in principles of
access and dissemination. A number of case studies utilizing these concepts
in a range of environments will be provided to supply a metaphors or
solutions potentially transferable to a variety of institutional knowledge
dissemination settings.


1. Sustainability: definitions, paradigms, revisions
The word "sustainability", etymologically derived from Latin
sustinere, to hold up, was first used in medieval French, abandoned in the
Renaissance and Enlightenment, and salvaged by the environmental primer,
The Limits of Growth (Meadows et al., 1974). In the late 1980's, the word
was semantically modified again by the United Nations Brundtland
Commission's Report, that was cleverly amalgamated as "sustainable
development" (UN World Commission on Environment and Development [UNWC],
1987, Chapter 2). "Sustainable development", however, was passionately
criticized by both environmentalists and social economy advocates because
of its "unsustainable" idea. The world languages often associate
"sustainability" with images of carrying, supporting, bearing and
suffering, or in agricultural narratives: "a method of harvesting or using
resources so that the resource is not depleted or permanently
damaged"(Merriam Webster Dictionary [MWD], n.d., para. 2). The German
equivalent, "nacht-halting", translates specifically in time related
metaphor as "long lasting" or "for a long time" ("Sustainability", 2008, p.
1). In fact, all of the natural languages maintain notions of time
–extensive, challenging circumstances preceding sustainability that require
patience, endurance, deprivation and reduction. No language associates
sustainability with "development" or "growth" unless it is implied within
(such as growth of character or stamina used in this context). Could one
argue then that the "organic" meaning of sustainability refers to enduring
processes only -- perpetual, patient, long lasting but quite separated from
external outcomes? And, if external outcomes are not indicating the
growth, are the outcomes of sustainable "development" somewhere along
increased capacity for resilience?
As mentioned, numerous attempts to give the definition of
sustainability legitimacy and universal appeal are consistently failing.
Economically speaking, the neoliberal and ecological economies view
sustainability in opposing terms. For neoliberals, to etymologically
divorce "development" from "sustainability" is a barrier to the natural
laws of growth. The ecological economists, being either moderately or
extremely expansion- averse, perceive the growth as exactly opposite to
sustainability. Not only that ecological economist argue against growth-
induced climate change (McKibben, 2007, p. 26) but they emphasize an
economic urgency to limit the growth to a human–scale development, not
always plausible in "post-autistic" economies (Constanza, 2003). Orr, an
early founder of eco-literacy thought, summarizes the compromise swiftly:
"the word "sustainable" pacifies environmentalists, while "development" has
a similar effect on businessmen" (Orr, 1992, p. 23).
A social sustainability perspective positions society at the centre of
sustainable debate. The sustainability is still an alignment with enduring,
non-disposable priorities but it must address more than just primary needs,
"higher-level social and cultural necessities as security, freedom,
education, employment and recreation" (Brown, Hanson, Liverman, & Meredith,
1987). Other viewpoints explore the role of natural resources and
biological imbalances such as buoyancy/resiliency of ecosystems maintaining
that only the environmentalism and ecology are qualified to guide the
definition of sustainability. The society and the state, being closely tied
to the corporate (economy), will inevitably fail to recognize the corporate
profiting from environmentally destructive choices (Buttel, 1998).
Finally, there are views proposing multidisciplinary paradigms. One of
them, Sumner's three dimensional sustainability paradigm (SSP), integrates
Habermas' communicative action with McMurty's concepts of life value and
Gramsci's idea of non-hegemony (Sumner, 2005). Habermas's model is dialog-
driven: the purpose of human communicative action is "a communicatively
achieved agreement…(that) rests on common conviction. The speech act of one
person succeeds only if the other accepts the offer contained" (Habermas,
1981/1984, p. 287). For Habermas every social action or engagement
originates in communicative action first because only "the speaker can
motivate (cursive mine) a hearer to accept the offer contained in his
speech act" (p. 278). McMurty's premiseexplores reversed values of life and
money. Only life increases the life, while the money increases the money
only. McMurty rejects the corporate agenda being given priority in
formulating societal benefits because it upholds "a hidden theme of
downsizing the life to upsize the sequence of money" (1999, p. 150). The
life value is to think, feel and do, thus the money values are not only
life-contradictory but also life- reducing. The third component of the SSP,
the Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony, explores theories of domination
of one cultural group over another. Gramsci's influenced scholars use
totalitarianism (hegemony) as manifested in corporate centralization of
media to understand the issues of control over education, work or leisure.
Therefore, a non- hegemonic approach values diversity, participatory design
and decentralization.
The SSP model demonstrates that sustainability will amplify when
dialogue, non-hegemony and life values are increasing; their decrease
develops societies that are unsustainable. Here is the visual
representation of the SSP model:
















Not withholding criticism Sumner's work received, the three-
dimensional paradigm has been recognized as one of a very few well
structured inter-disciplinary frameworks for identifying and measuring
sustainability in institutions and processes (Eberts, 2005). This paper
will revise slightly the SSP model to incorporate engagement perspective
in knowledge-dissemination environments.


2. The first revision: from socio-political to eco-literacy
One relevant historical aspect of education is the tendency to rely on
or perpetuate a current socio-political agenda, either explicitly or
implicitly. The success of any socio-political agenda is dependent on how
skillfully the power and influence are utilized. Within the context of the
socio-politically utilized powers, Connelly and Smith mention three
principal power types: the visible or explicit power, the "the mobilization
of biases" power and the "power of shaping preferences" (1999, p. 112-113).

The visible or explicit power is exercised by using plain, direct
language and apparently "clear" communication about regulation of
boundaries. The other two types of power are rather subtle, sometimes
barely detectable, yet perceived as significantly more damaging to
stakeholders' socio- political literacy. The "power of shaping preferences"
refers to the subliminally enforced choices appearing to be genuinely
wanted, almost always utilized by media and marketing. The "power of
shaping preferences", refers to orchestrated efforts by media, government
or corporate/ ideological bodies to deteriorate individual ability to
distinguish between persuasion created needs (via broadcasted message) and
an authentic individual need. The third one, "mobilization of biases" is
exercised in socio-political discourse rather frequently. It is usually
initiated by an organization that wishes to be perceived as engaged or
aware but its goal is to maintain a status quo and orchestrate a non-
decision making. Non-decision making is enforced by a) suppressing
possibilities for an open dialogue and b) by preventing any controversial
issue to enter the political/ decision making arena. For example, the
mobilization of "sustainable growth" bias was first initiated by the
embracing of an emerging environmental concept of sustainability. Next,
sustainability, although contrary to the idea of growth, was slightly
modified to avoid being perceived as conflicting. All opportunities for
concept to be openly debated in the decision making field were avoided.
Eventually, the revised, neutralized and weakened concept, formulated in a
manner to "allow for the continuation of economic growth and production and
consumption patterns" was coined: "sustainable growth". Sustainable growth
is an example of a successfully mobilized bias (p. 114). Similar instances
of coordinated attempts to convert public opinion can be identified in
environmentalism (green wash), sustainable energy (sustainable nuclear
power, sustainable tar sand development), production (sustainable
manufacturing) and agriculture (sustainable crops that do not produce
seeds). Connelly & Smith emphasize a danger due to perpetual manipulation
of public/political discourse. Not only it does further politically
alienate citizens provoking lethargy and powerlessness but also the society
at a large becomes much less resilient and unsustainable. As the individual
ability to understand the society (to be socio- politically literate)
slowly diminishes being replaced by social illiteracy, it also gradually
"normalizes and consolidates dependency" (Wynne quoted in Connelly & Smith,
1999, p. 122), especially dependency on "others" (authorities) to interpret
and tranlsate the socio-political discourse.
Although the question to why the socio-political literacy needs to be
reintroduced in adult education is somewhat apparent, the "how" and
especially, "where" to initiate this process is rather challenging. In
terms of "how" (the methodology), Habermas' communicative action suggests
that any socio-political "dialogue", even on a very small scale, will
motivate stakeholders. Every action is communicative action, and socio-
political literacy starts with the dialogue. In terms of providing the
space (the socio-political arena), the commons and (the public institutions
within the commons (especially institutions traditionally recognized as
safe and trusted, such libraries) need to be utilized. Yet, do we need
alternative commons too? And where we are going to source the custodians
of socio-political literacy from? Finally, what are the most relevant tools
or the best practices that will ensure citizen engagement?
2.1 Socio-political literacy and sustainability
One of the attempts to address the issue of socio-political literacy
applied specifically to the library environments was explored by Mehra and
Srinivasan -- the library-community convergence framework for community
action (LCCF) (2007). The LCCF supplies the guidance and a methodology for
progressive and proactive engagement of libraries in advocating social
change. In terms of advancing socio-political literacy, authors argue that
although libraries are places with special status "that is unique, and at a
distinct advantage over competing commercial, governmental and other
information service providers" they also have a rather rigid self-
perception and boundaries seeing themselves only as neutral referral
services (pg. 125). Partially due to their historical, institutional
patterns including dependence on public funding, and partially due to the
"lack of public library conceptualization, and its systematic and
aggressive marketing", libraries have been also actively resisting change
(p.125). Comparable developments in changing self- perceptions of public
libraries exist in the UK public library discourse. Goulding argues that,
indeed, "libraries are too passive and neutral, a quality that has
traditionally been viewed as strength", and further, a choice in reducing
libraries to providing only a space "is essentially a passive form of
social exclusion" (2006, p. 249). Goulding does recognize that a unique
place that a library occupies is perceived by the surveyed public as safe,
neutral and, surprisingly, non-governmental (p. 251). However, both the
library space and the library programming in the UK appeal more to the
immigrants than other user groups (p. 253).
The type of librarianship assuming the proactive library involvement,
according to Mehra and Srinivasan, is community or civic librarianship. The
methodology proposed is participatory action research (PAR), a
collaborative type of research which requires subjects to contribute to the
methodological design, data collection and final reporting. The PAR
resonates with the SSP paradigm: it is a non-hegemonic (participatory),
dialogue based (the protocols are mutually agreed upon) and has an
empowerment/ life value. Some of the community facets that could be
explored by PAR applied research are the very elements of socio-political
literacy such as "institutional policy development, political lobbying, and
creation of culturally sensitive training workshops…advertising and
promotion for positive visibility" (p.129). Intriguingly, the authors, much
like Goulding, provide only instances of immigrant groups involved with the
PAR, yet no instances of comparative programming offered to other user
groups are provided. Some reasons could be found in integration of the
immigrant settlement initiatives with library programming but some, also,
in a relative abundance of the library research exploring immigrants'
specific literacies. Since the late 1980's, the librarianship scholarly
work has been diligently researching immigrants and libraries: immigratns
information seeking behaviours (Caidi, Allard, & Quirke, 2010; Caidi, 2008,
Fisher, Durrance, & Hinton, 2004, Chatman, 1987), library leadership for
development of intercultural communities (Allard, Mehra, & Qayyym, 2007)
and variety of forms of multicultural, participatory created library
taxonomies (Srinivasan, 2006; Olson, 2001). The library specific socio-
political literacy programming and research outside of the immigrant or
marginalized groups, however, remains rather limited, creating the
assumption that the remaining users' groups have adequate level of socio-
political literacy.
Then again, it would be very challenging to envision developing
critical socio-political literacy in an environment that is dependent on
the political will and budget. The rise to this challenge is not to discard
the need for socio-political literacy but to introduce and replace the
socio-political with another, comparative type of literacy- the ecological
literacy, or ecoliteracy. The ecoliteracy, due to mobilization of biases,
could be perceived as a harmless subordinate to the possibly risky socio-
political relative, but it is broad enough to satisfy all of our socio-
political literacy needs. Additional, ecoliteracy has ability to add an
additional applied layer that relates to environment and interdisciplinary
design.


2.2 Engaging ecoliteracy
In defining four key challenges to sustainability, Orr argues that the
transition to sustainable society requires "a marked improvement in
creativity in the arts of citizenship and governance" because "only
government prodded by its citizens can act to limit risks posed by
technology or clean up the mess afterward" (2003, p.3). Only governments
build sustainably sound cities; it is not an individual but the government
that needs to be pressed toward sustainability. The individual (the
public), however, needs environmental literacy because "an environmentally
literate public chose to adopt and enforce standards that move us toward
cradle to cradle materials policy" (p.3). Practical, applied and engaged
socio-political literacy, according to Orr, is the ecoliteracy.
Ecoliteracy, a term coined by Orr and Capra in the 1990's, differs
from standard literacies: "literacy is ability to read. Numeracy is the
ability to count. Ecological literacy…is the ability to ask "What
then?""(1992, p. 85). For the past thirty years Orr has been advocating
benefits of opting for long term, sustainable choices as a prerequisite to
positive personal and social transformation. To make an impact, the society
must be examined first. The agents of ecoliteracy agenda are educational
institutions such as "non-governmental organization, schools, colleges and
universities…catalysts to a wider transformation of the culture and
society" (Orr, 2004, p.3). Orr does not specify libraries but the learning
environments that can engage the stakeholders are crucial: "the goal of
ecological literacy is not a passive kind of literacy to be confused with
reading, as important as that is, but rather the active cultivation of
ecological intelligence, imagination and competence, which is to say design
intelligence" (p.3). The design intelligence, Orr maintains, is the one
that links "courses, curricula, research, and, eventually, solutions".
Further, the notion of practicality is a specific feature of ecoliteracy.
The ecoliteracy requires less of the specialty knowledge and more of the
synthesis and the outdoor learning. Its goal is to create a broad
understanding of "interrelatedness, an attitude of care or stewardship, and
the practical competence" (1992, p. 90). Orr and Capra's collaborative
efforts leading to the foundation of the Centre for Ecoliteracy (2004) have
been focusing lately on "schooling for sustainability" by developing
students' practical skills such as food growing, preservation and
preparation and modeling practical "green designs". For many ecoliteracy
visionaries sustainability can survive only if it is "to remain useful", if
it focuses on "more than merely surviving or trying to keep a degraded
world from getting worse" (Stones, 2009, p. 1). Ecoliteracy is an
interdisciplinary dialogue that "values the way education occurs (that) is
as important as its content" (1992, p. 91), and furthermore as for Orr "all
education is environmental education…experience in the natural world is
both an essential part of understanding the environment and conductive to
good thinking" (p.90).
Recent initiatives with developing school and library gardens in the
USA have been encouraged as introduction to ecoliteracy to the commons. Not
only that by using ecoliteracy initial biases to introducing socio-
political literacy might be reduced but also a ecoliteracy co-educator (a
librarian, teacher, or a guide) by providing ecoliteracy environment (a
garden, for example) also provides a place conducive to learning practical
citizenship skills such as urban planning or lobbying for better quality of
urban landscapes. Ecoliteracy can empower only if it will motivate and
teach by hands-on engagement, both prerequisites for community renewal.






3. The second revision: from education for sustainability to education
as sustainability
The sphere of education does not reside isolated from often
alienated public sphere that features and nourishes politically
disfranchised consciousness. The literature of environmental or political
sciences is satiated with studies examining what was "not being done", and
how the "not-doings" are/ were politically orchestrated. Yet, the advocates
of education for sustainability, inspired by personal convictions rather
than the evidence, see these barriers as an opportunity for transformation.

Serrano argues that learning sustainability "is a participatory
process of developing social consciousness, of learning thorough social
action, and for creating new values" (2000, p. 99). Learning sustainability
also implies continuous education because "the dynamic nature of
sustainability involves a continuous learning experiment" (Cary, 1992, p.
283). This learning experiment, Sumner claims, belongs to the commons, the
fields of education, universal healthcare, and social benefits, thus "we
can understand sustainability as involving a set of structures and
processes that build the civic commons" (2003, p. 24). The structures
Sumner refers to are citizen associations, educational institutions and
places of learning, governments and processes are social movements:
"diverse, including reaching, learning, decision making and
researching…built on a firm foundation of dialogue, counter-hegemony and
life values" (p.24).


3.1 Education for sustainability (EFS)
The education for sustainability (EFS) envisions a sustainable society
explicitly moving "beyond fragmentary thinking that characterizes
modernity" by intensifying active participation (Lange, 2004, p. 121).
Lange suggests that the education for sustainability needs to borrow the
conceptual and methodological framework of the Taylor's proposed
transformative and restorative learning that assumes "citizens want to be
involved in the democratic process and that they desire to do "the good"
(p. 122). The goal of transformative learning is to restore alienated
individual consciousness back into the political or cultural arena. This
process, analog to the Freire's conscientization, requires development of
critical capabilities. To reclaim the consciousness, the EFS scholars
argue, is not an intellectual but a sustainable act (ensuring survival of
consciousness).
An active political participation is just one of the keys for
awakening a sustainable. Another access point or methodology of choice is
examination of a personal relationship with food. Transformative learning
subjects us to a domino- effect: once when one relationship is influenced
(such as one with the food or politics) all of the remaining relationships
(with family, state or self) are proportionally transformed contributing to
a "meaning of… how one's experience can become a catalyst for
sustainability" (Sumner, 2008, p. 35). Recently, pathways of food
production and consumption have been successfully used by a number of
authors exploring practical aspects of applciable EFS (McKibben, 2007,
Chapter 2). Nevertheless, for the EFS educators and scholars the access
points or methodologies are non- hierarchical; the outcome of these
processes is certainly not a "new type" of knowledge but rather a new
interpretation.
Challenges to this new paradigm are many. Mainly, there is an issue of
the EFS educational model that is perceived as two-fold: education for
sustainability and education as sustainability. The first EFS model, is a
policy based, top-down approach, used in an institutional setting which,
Serrano argues, "can be fast and many produce quick results but its impact
on change in values and behavior are usually superficial and less
enduring"( 2000, p. 90). For example, the initiatives to increase physical
aspects of sustainability in institutions that are also top-down and policy
driven are perceived as the EFS based ("greening" buildings, energy
consumption, recycling etc.). Although the EFS is an access point it is not
the preferred model. Only the education as sustainability (EAS) proposes a
genuinely sustainable type of education for sustainable world (Serrano,
2000, p. 90, Huckle & Sterling, 1996).


3.2 Education as sustainability (EAS)
The education as sustainability (EAS) is qualitative, "bottom-up
process…people participating in shaping, negotiating, deciding, designing,
executing and evaluating policy and therefore have a strong sense of
ownership" (p. 90). Serrano's views on EAS are influenced by Sterling's
cohesive views. Sterling, one of the early EAS scholars, views the EFS
model as being a connector between two polarized sides: on one side there
is transformative education with a range of radical socio-political
influences (e.g. ecological radicalism and utopianism), on the other a
mainstream education that includes a range of neoliberal paradigm such as
techno-centricity and "sustainable growth" (1996, p. 20). It is
challenging, Sterling argues, to balance both perspectives but here we can
find the potential for postmodernist transformation of the EFS into the
EAS. The EAS will remain capable of responding to the struggle of the
postmodern world only if it will continue to "be manifested and
meaningful…be clarified and worked for, otherwise a historic opportunity to
develop an adequate education response to postmodern conditions will have
been lost or at least delayed" (p. 21). For Sterling the EAS is a
"constructive EFS model" because "is essentially participative and
transformative, centering on capacity building and self
organization…enacted through a bottom-up process. The outcomes are open
ended and spring from concerns of participants" (1996, p. 200). The key
challenge to the EAS is sufficient social and political literacy of the
stakeholders, "as Huckle points out, ability to "read and write" their
society with full understanding of their rights and obligations" (Serrano,
2000, p. 91).
The EAS correlates with the PAR methodology because both are
"concerned with learning quality…and democratization" (p.200). One of the
final educational EAS goals is an individual willingness to return to the
public system with renewed sense of "values…new social knowledge" (Serrano,
2000, p. 99). In other words, new values are not necessarily needed
because the values, structures and processes are already in the commons.
Renewed values, however, are crucial.
3.3 Engaging education as sustainability
Considering a number of perspectives examined in relation to education
for and education as sustainability, the question of how the libraries
could respond to these challenges remains.
First, libraries being already in the sphere of commons, are
perceived as safe spaces allowing an intellectual freedom in unrestrained
learning within the user defined context of relevancy. The bottom-up
approach specific to the EAS is inherent to libraries.
Second, although libraries are perceived, much like traditional
schools, as institutions with rigid environmental "curriculum organized
around the study of the relationship between energy, environment and
economic", the nature of the modern digital library is moving toward
greater fluidity, a luxury that traditional educational institutions do not
have. Trilling and Fadel state that the librarian is the best new model
for teaching the 21st century skills in the landscape that is largely
globalized and where learning is reshaping the very nature of life (2009).
The "21st century skills movement" believes that new postmodern schools are
moving toward resembling the modern library outlook. Although the core
subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic will survive, the
educational school trends will emphasize more of the globalized, practical,
relevant, sustainable subjects such as global awareness, financial,
economic and health literacy.
Third, Orr's defined challenges to sustainability such as challenge
for more accurate "models, metaphors and measures to describe human
enterprise relative to biosphere" can be resolved by applying both, the EFS
and EAS specifically in libraries (Spring Seminar Series 2003, p. 2). By
allowing information ground to be freely explored and somewhat free of
political agendas, libraries provide an intellectual EAS space. By teaching
users how to search and interpret, the transition toward the EAS is
established. Orr's defined challenge to sustainability calls for "greatly
improved education…for transition to sustainability" (p. 3) emphasizing a
need for global awareness. Much like the authors of 21st Century Skills
noted, improving research literacy is the key to global awareness, and it
can be successfully learned in libraries. Finally, Orr also demands much
needed "efficiency in teaching information that we already have…and how
there apply across various scales of knowledge" (p.3). Development of a
relational type of knowledge, Orr argues needs to be superimposed over
specialized, fragmented knowledge that is thought in schools today. De-
fragmentation of knowledge can be addressed by the EFS; yet, the genuine
ability to defragment belongs to the realm of the EAS because it requires
interdisciplinary view about interrelatedness among seemingly distant
elements. The libraries, rather elegantly and almost without any effort,
seem to be responsive to both, EFS and EAS; libraries' engagement of
citizens, however, is yet to be negotiated.


4. The third revision: from printed literacy to oral literacy
(traditional knowledge)
One of the issues rarely discussed in literature, with the
exclusion of scholars exercising criticism of Freire's concept of
liberation and conscientization, is an unequal treatment of orally
disseminated knowledge as a primary mode of sharing. The critics of Freire
maintain that the literacy is often imposed rather than introduced, and the
cultures that are described primarily as oral are perceived as illiterate.
A seemingly librating processes of literacy could be seen as culturally
oppressive (hegemonic). Forced literacy is seen as "a colonizing process"
that founded on the Western values dominated by "visual and individualism
(and) assumptions about the linear and progressive nature of change"
(Bowers, 2005, p. 4). Bowers further argues that Freire's "liberating"
perspective on literacy is largely an industrial model of knowledge
dissemination that is compatible to globalized (and unsustainable) Western
societies, insomuch that most of the Western society concepts need to be
excluded from sustainable paradigm.


For example, most of the small cultural, predominantly oral literacy
based groups are often economically sustainable having less of an impact on
local eco-systems. All of the large cultural groups relying on the low-
context written literacies are, without exception, economically
unsustainable. Bowers argues that the oral literacy and "revitalization of
intergenerational knowledge is important to limiting monetization of the
commons" (p.6). The trends of preserving and revitalizing oral knowledge
are significant politically and economically for both, "small" and "large"
cultures due to increased pressures for abandoning commons and replacing
them with "free" markets (p. 6). Further, preserving local communities and
languages contributes not only to local ecosystems but to preservation of
the knowledge about how to live sustainably. Robinson reverses Freire's
call to stop the oppression and asks who has been oppressed, and what has
led us to believe that Western rationalism can provide guidance to
sustainability and freedom (2005).
To respond to or to analyze Freire's influence on environmental
thinking and ideas of sustainability is beyond the scope of this paper.
However, the significance of including the oral types of knowledge (used
intermittently with traditional knowledge) among instruments for helping
sustainable communities to thrive, needs to be seriously examined and
included in the sustainable library paradigm.


1. The traditional knowledge and sustainability
Although there is no universally accepted definition of oral or
traditional knowledge (TK), there is an agreement that it has strong
symbolic qualities, its values are distributed almost exclusively orally,
has a distinctive cosmology and "relations are based on reciprocity and
obligation towards both community members and other beings" (Berkes, 1993,
pg.5). Nanuvik Educational Task Force (1992) defines its traditional
knowledge being different to: "the individual thinker, surveying, naming
and arguing with his world (which) could be called Freire's orthodoxy. Yet,
in Inuit heritage learning and living have the same meaning so the
knowledge, judgment or skill could never be separated"(quoted in Rasmussen,
2005, p. 125). Interestingly, and not entirely unexpected, Orr describes
the quality of connectivity of the knowledge given by ecoliteracy as being
similar to the Greek concept of Paideia-- an ideal of universal knowledge
cherished in the Ancient World that "assumed no distinction between
learning and living" (Orr, 1992, p. 138).
In environmental sciences the TK is defined as "part of collective
memory of a community passed on orally through songs and stories as well as
through actions and observations" (Environment Canada, 2002, p. 1). The TK
is also archived orally (in storytelling), traces of it are kept in
linguistics, folklore, religious structures, medicine, music, art, craft,
home economics and agriculture. One can argue that some of the TK's
concepts are relevant to urban environments as there is significant volume
of urban TK handed down among city dwellers: a choice of schools or
babysitters, transportation, opportunities for finding better (or cheaper)
food choices, predictably more frequently shared among immigrants. The TK
is also applicable to all informally shared, oral inter and intra-
generational oral practices such as "street smart" knowledge, spatial
orientation (in a new country or a new city) and newcomer knowledge.
Another facet of the TK is that it "loses much of its relevance when
removed from the context of its source" (Environment Canada, 2002, p. 3),
thus by scholarly standards, could be perceived as unreliable. The TK,
however, strongly resists fragmentation and it is why it cannot be
successfully indexed, compartmentalized and described in scholarly terms.
Further, although story telling used to be a valued cultural practice,
"stories are not readily translatable into good policy. Nor do they
directly serve interests of decision makers" (Bowerbank, 1997, p. 30),
therefore the TK is usually excluded from political practices.
Additionally, as people neglected to cultivate the art of storytelling, the
understanding about how the TK is structured is largely forgotten once an
individual advances from an early childhood stage. Yet, as Bowerbank
maintains, nothing else but the oral components of the TK could advance an
environmental and sustainability agenda, because it provides "new models of
gathering to negotiate our collective relationships with nature…effective
"rhetorical spaces"…a cultural technology of connectivity and ground-ness"
(1997, p. 32).
Next, in Freire's influenced pedagogy circles the TK is not perceived
as having a capacity for transformation to sustainability due to its
traditional attributes. However, at the very essence of sustainability are
the metaphors of preserving, conserving and restoring that clearly
correspond to the TK, even more so than to the Freire's emancipative
language of oppression/liberation and transformation. Bowers also notes
that the scholarly, Friere's influenced literature resists questioning many
of it postulates: "emancipation, freedom, dialogue, liberation,
transformation rather than transmission, critical inquiry rather than a
banking model of education are difficult to question without appearing as
reactionary thinker" (2005, p. 138). The sine qua non is that cultivating
sustainability mandates abandoning cultural assumptions about what is high
versus low context knowledge. Additionally, culturally "less developed"
societies and practices might, in the end, be more useful in understanding
the very principles of sustainability, thus what is excluded or included
from sustainability needs to be carefully examined.


4.2 Engaging traditional knowledge
The role and mission of public libraries in relation to the TKs,
identified in the early 1970's in the Public Library Research Group
Statement (1971) and UNESCO Public Library Manifesto, emphasized inclusion
of traditional knowledge in "fostering inter-cultural dialogue and
favouring cultural diversity… (by) supporting oral tradition, ensuring
access for citizens to all sorts of community information" (United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 1994, para. 3).
UNESCO's affirmation of the need to incorporate all types of knowledge to
be able to an accurate map of cultural development was an early
acknowledgment of the quantity and quality of the TK circulating around the
world. The only element of the TK recognized in Western education is the
use of skill of narration. Interestingly, the narratives have been
thoroughly explored "given the centrality of narrative in human experience"
examined by the case studies, critical incidents, role playing and
simulations (Rossiter, 2002, p. 2). Libraries also utilize some of the
aspects of narratives in their programming efforts -- story circles and
autobiographical writing workshops-- because narratives are still
experienced as "a primary structure of human meaning and narrative as a
metaphor of developing self" (pg.3). The environmental and library
sciences, however, when exploring integration of TK mostly focus on the
management of indigenous knowledge (Srinivasan, 2006; Kargbo, 2005).
One of the instances of managing indigenous knowledge by public
libraries in Sierra Leone relevant to sustainability agenda confirms that
the major challenge to the TK is a "trend toward globalization (that)
undermines local tradition… indigenous knowledge been lost as a result of
disruption of traditional channels of communication, and replacement"
(Kargbo, 2005, p. 204). Kargbo argues that the library has a crucial role
in strengthening the community ties by emphasizing and introducing the TK
which, correspondingly, develops a positive sense of community belonging.
In cases of displacement, the exposure to the TK might improve the
stakeholders' socio-economic status (learning old arts and crafts) as much
as emotional health and self- confidence (p. 205). Those who are in
possession of the TK are found to be more resilient, thus more sustainable.
The role of the librarian is to find reliable sources to understand the
knowledge by type and by the way of being archived, also to transform it
"into usable form". This task is unmanageable unless there is the support
of a broader community: "there should be no difference in quality of work
between professional and non-professional…all should undergo basic
training" (p.206). The collection and dissemination of the TK in libraries
and library-like environments does depend on a much deeper dedication of
the library personnel and democratization of the library practice.
To summarize, the library sustainability paradigm (LSP), founded on
the SSP's principles of dialogue, life value and non-hegemony, will need to
incorporate the socio-political literacy introduced as ecoliteracy, advance
education for sustainability toward education as sustainability, and
allocate a significant number of resources to allow for integration and
engagement of the traditional knowledge.
The LSP model is as follows:



















5. The study cases
The choice of the projects being responsive of or reflective to the
concepts addressed in this paper was guided by following criteria. First,
the projects needed to be only minimally directed or supervised (empowered
by dialogue, socio-political literacy) and evolving rather organically
(life to life sequence, EAS). Second, the projects needed to be small in
scale, simple to implement, previously tested and preferably free (self-
sustainable). Third, a narrative/oral and participatory component must be
prominently displayed (non-hegemony, the TK). Although not all of the
projects responded equally to all of the criteria, what was selected was
promising in terms of moving toward a vision of sustainable design.


5.1 Human Library/ Living Library (Europe)
The Living Library is a community or group initiated event where a
"catalogue" of people –volunteers (living books) is created and available
to borrowers for a predetermined amount of time. The readers lending the
living books are allowed to interact, to listen to the stories and ask the
questions. The collections are built thematically (e.g. focus on economic
or social sustainability inviting volunteers with professional expertise or
practical knowledge of it). The Living Library is a methodology more than a
collection: it promotes dialogue, reduces prejudices and encourages
sharing. The project is simple: the educator or librarian decides on
priorities of collection, builds it and provides it to the public free of
charge ("Role of the Librarian", 2009). The Living Library project, renamed
recently to the Human Library, was created in the early 2000's in
Copenhagen, Denmark by the youth, anti-violence NGO "Stop the Violence".
Since, the Human/Living Library has been supported by the Council of
Europe, the Nordic Minister Council, the youth directorate of the Council
of Europe expanding in over 27 countries, including Canada and the USA.
The Human/Living Libraries events have been held at the Parliaments, public
libraries, festivals, schools, the living library book tours, and book
fairs ("Living Library"2009). The choice of the Human/ Living Library to
support the sustainable agenda is obvious. The events are free and
collaborative; their purpose is to connect people potentially interested to
exchange their stories. The opportunities to use Human/Living Libraries are
infinite. The collections can address issues of governance, citizen
participation, or design of green projects. The events strive to address
the authentic narratives about struggles and rewards that cannot be
extracted from mainstream media sources.


5.2 The StoryCorps (the United States)
The StoryCorps is a non-profit organization established in 2003 with a
goal of recording stories of people across the United States: "our mission
is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity
to record, share and preserve the stories of our life"("StoryCorps
Homepage", 2010, p. 1). All of the conversations, recorded on CD's, are
given to interviewees and archived at the Library of Congress. These
stories, close to fifty thousand collected so far, make the StoryCrops "one
of the largest oral history projects of its kind, creating a growing
portrait of who we really are" (StoryCrops, 2009, p. 1). This is largely a
public service with a mission "to honor and celebrate one another's lives
through listening and disseminate stories that "demonstrate our shared
humanity… hope to create a kinder, more thoughtful and compassionate
nation" (p. 2). StoryCrops initiative for a National Day of Listening on
the US Thanksgiving Holiday proposed one hour devoted to listening or
recording family stories. A free Do-It-Yourself Guide is provided along
with a guide about how to create a family depository of recording, keeping
them "alive" by introducing them to family gatherings. The StoryCrops
utilizes the TK with the use of technology. It promotes exploration of the
life values in an open dialogue and is focused on intra and inter-
generational values. Finally, it also provides institutional background,
such archival deposition in a very "non-hegemonic" manner.


5.3 The Campesino Biblioteca, Cajamarca (Peru)

The Campesino Biblioteca (The Farmers Library) in Cajamarca,
Peru is a product of forty years of efforts in promoting literacy among
farmers in Cajamarca regions. The project was initiated by the
establishment of Association of Rural Libraries in the 1970's under the
guidance of John Meltcoff and Miguel Garrett to develop a web of local
libraries that grew to 710 settings with over 60,000 users by 2008. The web
of libraries is based on volunteers: twelve provinces of Cajamarca are
assigned to twelve regional directors whose task is to visit the central
library three or four times per year. At the time of visit the directors
decide on collection to be taken and delivered to their homes. Their homes,
therefore, serve as regional libraries because public libraries in
Cajamarca do not exist.


The reading circles that have been inherent to traditional
Peruvian culture (reading papers while sitting in a circle) are now
established around the books, usually in the format of monthly meetings.
For example, the Masintranca Biblioteca Rural (regional library) and its
local coordinator Sergio Diaz Estela have been holding monthly reading
circles since 1992. The continuous effort over the years advanced into the
adult education as sustainability venture par excellence. Not being
satisfied with only passive intake of the knowledge, the campesions
initiated the creation of an encyclopedia of local knowledge (Biblioteca
Campesina) that grew to over a hundred books. These books are documenting
local legends, history and culture and are written entirely by local
farmers. Considering that in the 1970's this area was described as one that
suffers from wide-spread illiteracy, the forty years of access relatively
small on any developmental scale, profoundly changed the climate and
opportunities. Again, it is the meaning that brought about the
transformation. In the words of A. M. Ortiz, the chief consultant and
facilitator of the local library movement, "the books are only tools, and
the tools can be used in different ways. For us the principal impact was in
the ability to discern, to learn and to unlearn" (quote from the interview,
Francescutti, 2006).


5.4 The On-Demand Book Services (Canada)

In 2003 under the umbrella of The Canadian Research Alliance on
Community Innovation (CRACIN), followed by the 2005 workshop Digital
Libraries for and with Aboriginal Communities (DLAC), partners from the
Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto, Kuhkenah network (K-
Net), and Research on Information and Communication Technologies with
Aboriginal Communities (RICTA) gathered leaders of six First Nation
communities, researchers, academics, librarians, council members and
academics to create and consider a range of opportunities for creating a
digital library for Ontario First Nation communities. The library services
for First Nation in Ontario, impacted by a lack of funding as much as
insufficient compliance with the specific nature of traditional, oral
cultures that "do not always lend themselves to being deposited or
preserved in traditional print-based libraries", eventually served as a
prototype for a very different type of library service, an on-demand book
service (ODBS) (Caidi et al., 2008). The ODBS, initially envisioned as a
digital library catered to primary and secondary students was " built on
the power of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide
users with access to public domain materials (as well as possible
contributed materials), and allowing the works to be downloaded and printed
" (ODBS Portal, 2007, para. 1). In 2009, however, the ODBS was enhanced by
a new on-line portal, the KNET, designed to be a place for students "to
archive our work as it develops, as well as a way to engage the FN digital
communities" ("Welcome to the ODBS! ", 2010). However, the ODBS mission
expanded beyond digital printing toward the "context of learning, knowledge
sharing and history recording" that will provide the community with a "free
online content via a web portal that is developed by community members" as
well as gives an opportunity to "create physical copies of texts using ODBS
printing and bookbinding equipment." The ODBS project satisfies the
sustainable library paradigm entirely; it engages community in
sociopolitical literacy and traditional knowledge within the library-like
environment.
5.5 The Toronto Public Library Strategic Plan (Canada)
The Toronto Public Library (TPL) Strategic Plan, Our Shared Stories
emerged as a rather invigorating piece of writing addressing sustainability
issues with clarity and purpose (Toronto Public Library [TPL], 2008). The
Plan envisions the library to become "a catalyst for imagination, a conduit
for information and the cornerstone of the local community" (p. 3). The
library addresses a dynamic nature of the changing city (need for
continuous learning), and needs of an increasingly diverse community. There
is an awareness of the income inequalities and gaps in literacy, therefore
a library serves as an information sharing place focused on literacy,
culture, governance and sustainability. The last two of seven strategic
goals, "supporting creativity and culture" and "supporting sustainable
library," are designed in collaboration with the public as an outcome of an
extensive, six month consultation held at book clubs, farmer's markets,
community centres and shelters. The TPL vision of more inclusive design
instead of traditional focusing on the library as a space is explicit. The
definition of sustainability, however, is mostly EFS modeled: "to promote
greater residential participation in discussion about the environment and
sustainable practices" (pg. 14). Some of the sustainable activities,
besides contributing to the green strategy, are also diversity and social
literacy focused: "innovation including community development, supporting
partnerships, and building and contributing to online communities" (pg.
15). TPL plan is dialogue based: "encourages ongoing conversation …about
how we can achieve our goals" (pg. 16). The TPL Plan is but one a sample of
how the institutions can align itself with a vision for sustainable
society: citizen led dialogue, participatory and cooperative approach and
nurturing mutual responsibility in promoting a sustainable agenda for
community development.


Conclusion
The aim of this paper was to provide an exploratory framework
for libraries and library-like environments to engage with sustainability
in an interdisciplinary manner. The purpose was also to examine Sumner's
three-fold sustainability paradigm and investigate if, with small
revisions, it could be potentially applicable to multidisciplinary model.
Finally, the rationale was also to identify relevant models or
methodologies already in use in either institutional or non-institutional
settings that resonate with the ideas and concepts explored throughout the
paper.
The initial SSP model was expanded with socio-political literacy
transforming into ecoliteracy at the monologue-dialogue axis, education for
sustainability moving toward education as sustainability on the life value
axis and incorporation of traditional knowledge to avoid hegemony of
written literacies creating the library specific sustainability paradigm
(LSP).
All of the case studies provided were tested positive to both
paradigms sharing a number of similarities. First, using the SSP approach,
all of the projects (with exclusion of the strategic plan) began as small
in scale and grew larger mostly due to the users' perception of their
usefulness and meaning (the life value). Further, all the projects,
although initially guided, were not directed (non-hegemony) but rather
demonstrated flexibility and adaptability to incorporate issues as they
emerged within an on-going collaborative effort (dialogue).
Second, viewing them through the prism of the LSP, all the
projects responded well to socio-political literacy axis. Some of the
projects, such as the Human Library projects have been already including a
strong ecoliteracy mandate: environmentalists or ecologists included in
almost all of the living book collections. The Campesino Biblioteca,
however, is certainly the sample of the most successful integration of
sociopolitical literacy, ecoliteracy and traditional knowledge in a library-
like environment. The Campesino is also a model par excellence of education
as sustainability (EAS), and analogous developments are anticipated to be
seen with the On- Demand Book Services/ adjunct KNET in the very near
future.
Intriguingly, it was the presence and integration of the TK,
which was found to be critical for development of sustainable community
projects. Perhaps, it is an indication that the TK, having a low capacity
for political use or mobilization of biases, is a vital enabler of
sustainability. Or, perhaps the attribute of TK is in "allowing historical
perspective to influence the research irrelevant of political agenda" which
is also one of the prerequisites to think about in sustainable terms (Orr,
2003, p.3). If we reflect back to the natural languages definition of
sustainability related to the process of building resilience, the strong
occurrence of the TK indicates, perhaps, that developing methodologies for
exploring and introducing the oral types of knowledge (e.g. story telling)
instead of advancing the "green" agenda will contribute significantly more
to community sustainability.
Finally, this paper represents an initial attempt only to
conceptualize complex correlations among sustainability, literacy, society
and library, and needs to be additionally tested and expanded upon,
primarily in the area if testing the validity and usefulness of the
proposed LSP paradigm.

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-----------------------

SSP

Dialogue Monologue


Non -Hegemony




Hegemony

Life






Money


L(ibrary)
S(ustainability)
P(aradigm)

Eco-literacy Sociopolitical literacy
(dialogue)

Education as sustainability




Education for sustainability
(life value)


Oral




Written
(non-hegemony)