Sustainable Thinking & Action Round Table (START) Homepage

Sustainable thinking ensures that communities thrive, bounce back from disruption and are infused with new and better life for everyone. Sustainable thinking builds awareness and consensus, and inspires action in library staff to own their role as sustainability leaders in their communities.

The Sustainable Thinking & Action Round Table (START) will provide assistance to the NYLA Sustainability Initiative to facilitate discussion and guide work around sustainable thinking to create resources designed to mobilize libraries within their communities; plan related events and workshops for NYLA; and provide assistance to the NYLA Sustainable Library Certification Program.

Join us today by logging in to your personal NYLA account, click ‘Personal Record Detail’ from the left-hand menu – then click on ‘Add Sections / Round Tables’ from the list of options at the top.

Board and Officers

Nomination, Member-at-Large: Karie Schulenburg

Karie's Statement:

As an early-career librarian, I have exerted much of my professional energies towards sustainable actions. 

• As a public library employee I created multiple community programs teaching sustainable choices such as: composting 101, growing your first garden, container gardening, green cleaning, and nutritional cooking classes, amongst others. 
• As an MLIS student, I focused many school projects on sustainable actions. These included: creating environmental resource lists, grant writing (I acquired Tower Gardens for my library with this skill), I built an online database categorizing food assistance needs by region, and a class on multiculturalism in libraries.
• I am currently involved with XR Writers Rebel - NYC which is a group made up of little-known and well-known authors, publishers, and librarians fighting for environmental justice with special focus on the writing, reading, and publishing communities. 
• Fighting for a sustainable world is one of my main goals as a librarian, as you can see in my professional history. However, I am new to New York City and am still a new librarian. I want to be a Member-at-Large for START to learn more about the needs of our region, expand my network, and to participate in environmental actions. 

Karie is currently working at The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn.

START Bylaws