Library – sustainable organization by definition

Vilnius County Adomas Mickevičius Public Library as one of the first libraries in Lithuania adopted the Sustainability Declaration. By this declaration the library engages to live a sustainable life not only inside the organization, but also when communicating with the outside society during different activities and events. The library is by nature an organization promoting sustainability, because borrowing books from the library implies the multiple use, which is free of charge for the patrons, moreover contributes to the culture of sharing and preservation of books. Books exchange shelfs are extremely popular at the library, where people bring already read books which they don’t need anymore and from where they can take books which they would like to read to their home.

On 8-9th September the Library organized events promoting sustainability – “Domesticating sustainability: afternoons at the library”. As Asta Kazakevičiūtė–Bankauskienė, one of the initiators and very experienced librarian, head of the Information Resources Department, says, the idea is to talk once more about sustainability, to foster, promote and deepen the knowledge about sustainability. On 8th September, the first day of this event, the afternoon was started with a discussion “Value of the book: changing in space and time”. Participants of the discussion – director of the Vilnius County Adomas Mickevičius Public Library Emilija Banionytė, head of the publishing house “BALTO“ Daina Žemaitytė, professor of the Communication faculty, Vilnius university Remigijus Misiūnas, and moderator, chair of the Association of Lithuanian Librarians Jolita Steponaitienė – discussed the questions: how the value of the book can be determined, does this value changes in time, is it necessary to preserve, to restore all the books, what do we need to do with the books that patrons do not borrow anymore and that lose their value?