Mary Ghikas, ALA wonk, once again put out an amazzzzzzzzzzzzing guide to ALA Midwinter. Must reading! I found it thanks to Aaron Dobbs’ post to several ALA lists, and may I remind you he’s running for ALA Council and I’m supporting him.
On the ALA wiki page linking to Mary’s report I also saw the following good advice from the Task Force on the Environment — I’m going to follow suit.
The Task Force on the Environment of the Social Responsibilities Round Table (TFOE-SRRT) wants conference goers to bring their favorite traveling mugs and water bottles in support of efforts encouraging the American Library Association (ALA) to reduce its carbon footprint. TFOE will launch this event at the upcoming ALA 2008 Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia from January 11-14, 2008. The title of this campaign is “Cup by Cup for a Greener ALA.”
The campaign will show that ALA members are ready to make lifestyle changes for sustainable conferences and to protect the health of the Earth.
The math is simple. A typical ALA Midwinter draws over 10,000 librarians to its 2000+ business meetings, discussion groups, programs, and events. If every librarian attending Midwinter brought their own coffee cup more than 10,000 paper or Styrofoam cups would not enter already over-flowing landfills.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Another Flickr test - 2006
- Flickr - 2006
- Progress on Blog Migration - 2006
- I'll take the high road... - 2006
- The Fragile Connection - 2004
Wouldn’t it also make sense to bring your own tote bag, so you don’t have to collect yet another one from a vendor to schlep all your schwag around? An empty one is less bulky in a suitcase than a mug, tho’ it probably holds less coffee….
I’d disagree only because vendor tote bags become our grocery bags (at least when we remember them). I get a lot of use out of library tote bags and love it when grocery clerks praise me for remembering them!
This coffee cup and water bottle thing is a an overlooked opportunity for ALA (or some entrepreneur) to make a killing. Why not sell ALA bottles and cups (with those nifty clips to attach to backpacks and purses)?
I started thinking about what I had that would be appropriate to bring and realized that most of my cups/bottles are optimized for my car, not for totting around a city. 🙁
Diane
Ooh, you are so right, Diane. Hmmm.
I travel with my own coffee, but the cups are not the clipping kind.
Now, if someone sold these with my favorite ALA conference motto, I’d be all over that. (It is, courtesy of a dear friend: “ALA: Come. Bitch. Be Renewed.”)
I brought one from another library conference. 🙂
Smarter than the average bear!
Diane & anyone else who is interested: I recently bought a pair of stainless steel sports bottles (on sale at YourGuideToGreen.com for $18.99 a pair) and I’ve been very happy with their portability. No leakage and the cap has a loop that fits a finger comfortably and an attached clip for hanging it off of your bag (or belt loop, as I tend to do). The only down side is that they aren’t insulated, so they’re probably best used for cold or room temperature items, but you might be able to do coffee in them.