A partnership program of the American Library Association and
Global Learning, Inc.
This is our first project newsletter for state trainers and LBSC Committee members. It is meant to be interactive, so please email your suggestions, resources you've found that might be of interest to other trainers, news items, questions—or whatever else you would like to have included—to Paula Gotsch, editor, paulag@worldshare.net.
Contents
ALA Midwinter Meeting 2000
State Trainers
Future Fall 2000 Workshops
LBSC in Public Libraries
Sustainable Community Issues
Special Sustainable Development Days in October
World Food Day Teleconference
T elefood
International Center for the Eradication of Poverty
A Gateway for Information on Eradicating Poverty
Children's Department
Misc. Sustainable Communities News Items
Feedback
ALA Midwinter Meeting in Washington, D.C., in January 2000
There will be an LBSC Project meeting for state trainers and LBSC Committee members attending the ALA Midwinter business meeting.
More information will be forthcoming.
State Trainers
Several of the pre-conference alumni have already given the LBSC workshop in their areas (and in some cases outside their areas).
- Idaho State University, Summer Institute of the Idaho State Library, Maria Anna Jankowska and Anne Abrams, presenters;
- Wyoming Library Association Conference, Renee Vaillancourt, presenter;
- North Carolina Association of School Librarians, Karen Perry and Melanie Buckingham, co-presenters.
Future Fall 2000 Workshops
- New Mexico Library Association. Mary Pat Kraemer and Laurie Macrae, Las Cruces, New Mexico, October 13;
- Mississippi Library Association. Karolyn Thompson, Jackson, Mississippi, October 18th.
Have we missed any presentations in this fall lineup?
LBSC in Public Libraries
Several state trainers have written articles for Public Libraries, the journal of the Public Library Association. The Jan./Feb. 2001 issue will feature the theme of libraries and sustainable communities. This special issue also will include articles by Sara Long, past president of ALA, and Jeffrey Brown, executive director of Global Learning and project director for the LBSC project.
Sustainable Community Issues
When we tabulated your responses on the LBSC preconference feedback forms, we found out that the most mentioned local and global sustainability issues of concern for community sustainability issues were:
- Local: economic development, literacy, land use, job training, and water quality.
- Global: access to information, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, natural resource depletion, effects of globalization on the economy, and ozone depletion.
We thought that structuring these collective issue priorities around special local and global days might be a way to address the content area of the project newsletter in a way that would be useful for librarians. Let us know if this works or not!
Special Sustainable Development Days in October
- October 16—Seventeenth Annual World Food Day
www.worldfooddayusa.org/ - October 17—UN International Day for Eradicating Poverty
www.ifad.org/ - October 24—UN World Development Information Day and UN Day
www.unsystem.org
World Food Day Teleconference
This year's World Food Day teleconference is titled "Poverty and Hunger: The Tragic Link—A Conversation with Amartya Sen." Sen is the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in economics for his work on global economic development. He also is the author of Development As Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knoft, 1999).
The program will be broadcast live from studios at George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), Monday, October 16th, from noon to 3 p.m., EST. For more information, contact the U.S. Committee for World Food Day, (202) 653 2404, or visit www.gsu.edu/~wwwwfd/.
Telefood: Mobilizing World Solidarity to Fight Hunger
It is estimated that there are eight million people who do not get the food they need to lead a healthy, active life. Telefood, an initiative of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), includes an annual campaign of broadcasts, concerts, and other events dedicated to reducing the number of hungry in the world.
Telefood raises funds for small projects that assist the rural poor in developing and transitional countries, especially women and other vulnerable groups, to grow more food or increase family income so they can afford to buy enough food. FAO experience has shown that small farmers often possess the skills and know-how but lack simple tools, quality seed, fertilizer, and the small equipment necessary to get the most out of their fields. For more information, contact the FAO Liaison Office for North America, FAO-LOWA@fao.org.
International Center for Eradication of Poverty: Partners in Development www.eradicatepoverty.com
This project focuses on "access to information" as a crucial basis for the alleviation of poverty.
Access to information is:
The information and communications technologies (ICT) serve as a powerful tool to give equal access to the poorest of the poor and thereby help to create Sustainable Human Development and also integrated rural development. With such a pro-poor agenda of technology-improved access to education, healthcare and information, it is increasingly possible for rural and poor urban communities to integrate into economic life, and thereby raise rural income levels, through information services.— Dr. Bhausaheb Ubale, former Commissioner, Canadian Human Rights Commission
A Gateway for Information on Eradicating Poverty
www.undp.org/poverty
Launched in 1997, this Web site maintained by the United Nations Development Program's Social Development and Poverty Elimination Division (SEPED) gives quick access to information, publications, research, data, and indicators on poverty. SEPED works in three focus areas: poverty eradication, employment and sustainable livelihoods, and gender and development. Go to www.undp.org/poverty for a copy of United Nations Development Program's "Overcoming Human Poverty 2000," in Spanish, French, or English.
Children's Department
www.unep.org/geo2000/pacha
"Pachamama: Our Earth, Our Future," is written by and for children under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Pachamama is the Incan word for "Mother Earth." The book includes poems, anecdotes, and illustrations by children around the world, based on UNEP's Global Environmental Outlook 2000 report.
UNICEF released its new report, Progress of Nations 2000, this past July. Published in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic, the report will be circulated in more than 180 countries to heads of state, key policy makers, nongovernmental organizations, and advocacy groups. The report focuses on the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS and reports that worldwide, every minute six people under the age of twenty-five are newly infected with the virus. The report celebrates the power of immunization and sets out a new agenda for vaccines.
Misc. Sustainable Communities News Items
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a Green Communities Web site, www.epa.gov/greenkit/3tools.htm. The Web site focuses on envisioning the future of your community with useful tools and steps for putting together or taking part in a community visioning process.
The Appropriate Technology Library at www.villageearth.org/ATLibrary/ features a library of more than 1,050 books on village-level, do-it-yourself technologies, especially for rural communities, all on microfiche or CD-ROM for individuals or organizations.
Feedback: LBSC Newsletter #1
Paula Gotsch, Associate Director
Global Learning, Inc.
1018 Stuyvesant Ave.
Union, NJ 07083
(908) 964 1114
Fax: (908) 964 6335
www.globallearningnj.org
Visit the NJ Sustainable Schools Network Web site at
http://community.nj.com/cc/sustainableschools.