Christmas Special

Strides in Sustainability in the curriculum at Rider

From an email we received today from Pat at Moore Library, regarding upcoming faculty workshop [January 17]:

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the way our society is consuming the earth’s natural resources is not sustainable. This ecological crisis has scientific, social, political, and economic repercussions. It is our responsibility as an institution of higher education to educate our students about the many dimensions of the environmental changes at hand. In this 90-minute workshop, we will give some basic background about global change, discuss ongoing institutional changes in response to the climate challenge, and provide participants with existing models for integrating sustainability into coursework and co-curricular projects across the University.

The RU Libraries have been getting a lot of help from the sustainability steering committee to increase awareness about wasting paper and other resources, and we now have a library blog and posters at Talbott and Moore Libraries–thanks to Mike Gray and Diana Petras–that will make students think before printing and discarding paper from the printers! Laura Hyatt, Biology faculty, has used some of the statistics of wasted paper in one of her classes in the form of an exam question, and Diana Kayes, part-time Sustainability Coordinator and Rider student, has been working with me to create additional posters. I will be at the Vale Conference in January with a poster advertising the RU Libraries’ ideas on reducing wasted resources and the partnerships involved in this project. Hopefully next semester and in the future we will start to reduce all of the paper, toner, cartridges, etc. used in the two libraries!

Pillars of Recycling

 

Sorry for the delay in the comic.  I use my home computer to scan and format individual comics.  About two weeks ago, I lost my main hard drive.  It took me about a week to replace the hard drive and reinstall software.  This means once we get back from winter break that Diana and I will hopefully be a little more regular with the comics (about 1 a week).

 

Hero of the Week.

I’d like to take a moment to share a story with you, paperreaders. It’s a story that probably won’t take up a lot of your time to read, but will undoubtedly leave you thinking for days, maybe even years to come. It’s the story of my friend, Ryan, who has been deemed this week’s Hero of the Week.

Ryan J. LaBoy

It was a day like any other day at Talbott Library. I was sitting at my desk under the glow of the garish fluorescent lighting (I have to wear a lot of jewel tones so it doesn’t wash me out–but that’s another story), just typing away at the computer to the gentle sound of an ice storm pelting at the windows, when I heard the cry of a familiar voice. The voice belonged to my friend and fellow library-worker, Ryan LaBoy. He stood before me with quivering lip, cradling an unwieldy stack of crinkled paper, which I soon learned was mangled at the hands of angry students. The reason was this: the graduate assistant for Ryan’s theory class was given the task of making photocopies of the final exam. At the beginning of the test, however, the professor informed the class that some of the pages were incorrect and should be removed from the packet of papers. “They were just going to chuck it!” reports LaBoy who, enlightened by the anti-paperwaste efforts of our library, asked if he could take the unseemly pile to be recycled.

Now Ryan has always been a hero of sorts to me, but I never realized his indisputable value to society until today. I have put together a classy photo montage to honor Ryan’s valiancy….

Paper Conspiracy???

We have had some rather disillusioning news here on the paperwaste front today. Unfortunately, I cannot get into the gritty details of it all as I am still fact-finding, but suffice to say we are talking potential conspiracy level… for now, though, I have to keep my mouth shut…

In the meantime, I will give you a little good news. A student came up and asked if we had the capabilities to do double-sided printing. I told him we are not equipped to do so and that because he was conscientious enough to ask, I would make a free copy for him behind the counter. Technically this was an abuse of my powers as Talbott Library’s Adminstrative Associate and even a rationalization of the greater-green-good.

Perhaps I will be reprimanded for the act. I sincerely hope so. I think it is totally inexcusable that the library, the temple of knowledge and ideals that it is, fails to offer double-sided printing.

Upon making the copy for the student, I implored that he write an email to me and Dean of the libraries drawing attention to the matter. Hopefully the student will. If I am reprimanded (or whatever), I’ll take my seat along with other great environmental anti-heros like Swamp Thing.

I have a nice Swamp Thing essay I’m working on, by the way. Hopefully I will post it here in a day or two. Till then, keep reading, paperfaithful.

- Mike

Paperwaste shall triumph.

a reason to celebrate!!

joining the throngs of paperwaste fans everywhere is the italian soccer team, here to help us celebrate achieving our first monumental goal of 500 hits!!!