OSU Libraries and Press engages in multiple efforts that demonstrate our commitment to creating a more sustainable world. By their very nature, libraries embody sustainable practices in the sharing of materials, resources and spaces among community members. Because The Valley Library is a popular destination and heavily used space, it produces a significant amount of waste - our goal to to find ways to reduce the waste, reuse what we can, and recyle as a last resort. Below you will find many ways our library is working on being more sustainable! 

Current OSU students, staff or faculty if you have suggestions of ways we are being sustainable or could be in the Valley Library please reach out.

Sustainable Operations and Waste Practices

Recycling Bins Paired with Waste Bins

The Valley Library offers collection bins for paper recycling, bottle/can recycling, and trash disposal on all six floors of the library. Look for large, silver triple-sort bins (paper, bottle/can, trash) or individual bins for bottles/cans and waste.  The Valley Library depends on you and other community members to correctly sort waste to ensured continued recycling success in the library and on campus.

Compost Bins

Currently we offer composting for staff use in various staff kitchenettes in the building.  We are piloting PUBLIC composting in Spring Term 2024.  The two compost pails will be on the second floor of the Valley Library, across the vending machines, by the Eco-to-go drop offs, on the stairs down to Java 2.  Thanks to our OSU student group the Waste Watchers Sustainability Club, who will be managing this pilot for us!    Read more about OSU composting how-to here.

Pizza Box Collection (Dead & Finals Weeks)

 

Did you know?  Pizza boxes are compostable!   Bring them to the Borrowing and Information Desk anytime, but note we usually offer a cart to drop them off during dead and finals weeks,  where discarded pizza boxes can be placed. During other times of the term, pizza boxes can also be placed into the compost bins on the loading dock outside the library.

 

Water Bottle Filling Stations

Water bottle filling stations are available at drinking fountains on all six floors of the Valley Library. This supports the use of refillable bottles and helps to reduce the use of single-use bottled water containers.

Compressed Air Generator for Keyboard Cleaning

Rather than using compressed air canisters to clean library computer keyboards (and sending empty canisters to the landfill), library staff uses a small compressed air generator to accomplish the same task, with no waste, for over 150 desktop and laptop.

Scratch Paper in Learning Commons

Recycled paper that does not contain personal information is cut and reused as scratch paper for staff and patron use at service desk and in the Learning Commons.

Washable Rags and Refillable Bottles for Cleaning

 

 The Valley Library Learning Commons is a space heavily used by students, which means that messes need to be cleaned up on a regular basis. Washable rags are used for many cleaning chores, nearly eliminating the need to dispose of cleaning cloths in the landfill-bound trash. Bottles of cleaning solution are refilled from bulk containers, reducing the number of empty plastic bottles going into recycling.

Shipping Box Reuse

 

On a daily basis, The Valley Library receives materials in shipping boxes. Wherever possible, those boxes are reused to ship materials to other libraries who want to borrow our materials on a short-term basis (part of our Interlibrary Loan services).

Repair of Library Materials

Library materials, shared among many users on campus and out in the community and larger world (really!), occassionally suffer damage. Rather than recycling these items or sending them to the landfill, in most cases, library staff repair the damaged items and return them to the collection for continued use by patrons.

Library Party Pack for Staff Use

 

  

TheValley Library Party Pack is a 30 place setting made from recycled plastic, and enables library staff to reduce or eliminate event waste, particularly single-use plastic place settings. This party pack can be reserved (through an internal calendar)  for department meet ups, social events, student pot lucks, focus groups and more!  We use our dishwasher in the library to clean and store the materials in a large plastic tote.  This was  inspired by Corvallis's own Green Girl who provides large quantities (100s) of reusable place settings locally!   Note -  The Guin Libray in Newport also has a party pack.  

Refillable Whiteboard Markers

The whiteboard markers we lend are refillable, so we aren't going through a bunch of single-use pens! Instead of plastic-sided erasers, we include a cloth sqaure to erase that can be washed and reused. 

Sustainability in Library Services

Double-sided Printing & Scanning

Double-sided printing is the default setting for printers in the Learning Commons (main/2nd floor). OSU students concerned about sustainability advocated for this change in default settings, thus reducing the overall amount of paper used for printing.

Instead of paying to print, scanners are located on the 1st, 2nd/Main, 3rd and 5th floors  allow you to scan documents (color, gray, black and white) in searchable PDF, quick PDF, JPEG, PNG, or Rich Text/DOC formats and send them to an  @oregonstate email address or save to a USB drive, certain cloud storage  or by QR code to a tablet or smart phone. 

Crafternoons

The Valley Library offers Crafternoons on the odd number weeks of term on Thursdays, 4:00-6:00pm.  Not only a time to take a break from studying, make a craft, and meet new people but most often the crafts relate to sustainable, upcycling or other reusable materials in their crafts.  Examples include indoor plant propagation with OSU Horticulture Club, travel crafts with OSU GO, luggage tags and postcards from old maps, and paper bows and flowers with old book pages.

Library of Things

The Valley Library offers a wide variety of items for short term loan to reduce the need for individual purchasing of these items though our Library of Things  (with no fines as long as they are returned)  Some examples include: many many charging cables and cords, whiteboard markers, laptops, hotspots, bike locks,  local park passes, solar chargers, even a telescope, and much more.  Students don't have to buy a scientific calculator that they only need for a few tests a term, the library maintains a collection of over 100 that were used over 1000 times last term. Noise bothering you? Borrow our noise canceling headphones.  Need supplies for measuring or drawing - check out our crafting or measuring supplies kits. Winter gray blues get you down, you can borrow a blue light therapy lamp to help. Lockers are also a great way to store things (for free) for a few weeks or a term. Rocketbooks are more sustainable than using paper - check 'em out! 

Course Reserves

The OSU Libraries offer short-term borrowing for some of your course texts on reserves - digital and physical. Students can also request items for the library to try and add.    This service is a compromise. Rather than one student checking out the item for the entire term, individual students can access the course text as an online PDF or a physical item for a short period of time in order to increase the total number of students that have access to the text over the duration of the term.