Keynote Speech – Madeleine Charney

Academic libraries as sustainability hubs: evolving with our campus community and within our profession

in Theme 1: Sustainable Environment

How can academic librarians be effective change agents in the sustainability movement? Madeleine will share success stories that bring together faculty, staff, students and librarians across disciplines at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. As current Coordinator of SustainRT, a new round table under the American Library Association, Madeleine will present the group’s evolution and current practices with an eye toward other library communities’ potential for creating sustainability groups. By learning about innovative projects, programs, and collaborations, the audience will be asked to consider their own personal agency as together we face uncertain and unprecedented times.

Madeleine Charney

Research & Liaison Services Librarian, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Coordinator, SustainRT: Libraries Fostering Resilient Communities of the American Library Association

Madeleine Charney received an MLS from the University of Rhode Island (1991) and an MA in Landscape Design and Planning from the Conway School of Landscape Design (2003). She is currently a Reference Services Librarian at the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst where she is liaison to the departments of landscape architecture, regional planning, agriculture and sustainability across the curriculum. She also plays a key role in the UMass Sustainability Curriculum Initiative, a mini-grant program which joins faculty and librarians across disciplines and integrates the role of the library in the student learning experience. She has presented at numerous conferences about the intersection of academic libraries and the sustainability movement in higher education. Her publications, including “Academic Librarians and the Sustainability Curriculum: Building Alliances to Support a Paradigm Shift” (*Collaborative Librarianship* v6/1, 2014) underscore the integration of economic, social and environmental factors in the teaching and learning of sustainability vis a vis library resources and services. She is a co-founder of SustainRT, a new round table under the American Library Association and is the current Coordinator.