Green Library Initiatives and Community Engagement: A Comparative Study of Green and Traditional Libraries

Abstract

In this study, the relationships between green library projects and community involvement were explored using data from 24 libraries, 12 of which are certified green and 12 are not. A combination of methods was used to gather data from 480 users, 48 staff and by regularly observing the facilities during six months. The project studied how the company treated the environment, its energy use, how involved it was with the community and how pleased its users were. According to the findings, green libraries had an 18-percentage point higher rate of community involvement (78% compared to 52%), used 34% less power and gave users a satisfaction rating of 4.6 out of 5, while the regular libraries only had 4. Environmental education programming was present in green libraries 2.3 times more and these libraries attracted over 41% more different community members. Community pride, growing environmental awareness and greater social bonding were found to be main achievements of green library efforts. The findings indicated that attracting and engaging places in communities could be achieved with the use of sustainable design, renewable energy and environmental programming. Analysis of data found that there were clear differences between green and traditional libraries in all the evaluated aspects (p<0.001). The results point out that green library practices improve community involvement, save energy and support efforts to protect the environment.