Advocating Public Libraries by the SDGs

Abstract

The library world has recognized the importance of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the fact that they can be taken as a starting point when considering ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable libraries. The SDGs are general in nature, though they approach sustainability from many angles. In virtue of many-sidedness, they balance the debate on sustainable development, which, incidentally, is prone to focusing solely on carbon neutrality or emission reduction. However, because of the generality, they do not offer a ready-made action plan. Thus, the SDGs should be clarified and interpreted in the library framework. In addition, the SDGs are interlinked and show how sustainable development depends on factors that are interdependent. A national project (2020-2021) Bringing environmental awareness of public libraries to the 2020s investigated the environmental awareness of Finnish public libraries. The project included a survey on public libraries’ environmental work and values but also the SDGs were worked on workshops. The project showed that the SDGs can be used to broaden and deepen the environmental awareness of libraries. However, they also offer a visually well-designed and internationally accepted tool for marketing public libraries by clarifying how diversely libraries have adopted sustainability and promote the SDGs.