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I also had the opportunity to serve as a session timer at the Inspiration, Innovation, Celebration conference at UNCG.

The first session I attended/timed was “Going Green in the Library: It’s Not Just for Contractors”.

The speakers for this session were: Michael Crumpton, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Sarah Dorsey, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Beth Filar-Williams, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Mary Scanlon, Wake Forest University; Ameet Doshi, Georgia Perimeter Collegesion.

Several ideas were offered for reevaluating how we do business in libraries. An electronic poll was taken to evaluate the current participation levels of the attendees and their sponsoring insitutions.

Among the ideas:

Try to use environmentally-friendly cleaning products in your library and try to work with your maintainance department to order the best products. A cleaning product was introduced that was not only more “green” but had been produced in a factory that had used “green” techonolgy.

Paper use was another issue addressed. Attendees were encouraged to set their printers to duplex mode when possible.

We were advised that recycling containers are used most often when they are located next to a regular trash can. If someone needs to track down a recycling bin, they are less likely to try to recycle.

It was pointed out that laptop computers use less electricity than a desktop computer and old computers can be recycled.

This session was thought-provoking and hopefully will yield substantive results.

I was able to attend the next session without having to be the timer because they had enough assistance. The speaker was our own Mary Beth Lock. Having arrived at ZSR the Monday afterthe Wake the Library 5K, I was interested to hear the history of the project. A video clip from the other 2 scheduled presenters, Erik Mitchell and Susan Smith, added a nice touch of innovation in keeping with the conference. I’m looking forward to getting onboard this year and doing what I can to help bring about another successful race.

The last session I attended/timed was “Enriching the Academic Experience: The Library and Experiential Learning at Middle Tennessee State University”. I too found this presentation very interesting andwill defer to Patty Strickland’s description of the projects presented. The hands-on approach to the learning process seemed to contribute to the students’ dedication to their projects and the willingness of the library to be a partner/platform/guinea pig showed their genuine interest in the success of each project.