Solar panels being installed on the roof of our St Pancras building, in London.

As the UK’s national library, we hold over 170 million items including this morning’s tweet, each day’s newspapers, and items from every age of written civilisation. Like any large institution, we can be complex. There are many cogs that keep a place that inspires people all over the world going. And like everyone, we are navigating this change to help create a brighter climate future for people and the planet. 

Maja Maricevic, Head of Higher Education and Science, leads our science work and is exploring the role that we play in helping solve the challenges of climate change. In this piece, she reflects on the work we have undertaken over the past decade, the planning and changes we’ve made in the last year and challenges on our future to-do list. 

I think that calling it climate change is rather limiting. I would rather call it everything change... Margaret Atwood - in conversation with Ed Finn from Arizona State University

As a place where people come to work on their research and new ideas, we know that many scientists, students, businesspeople and creative practitioners use our collections to improve our understanding of climate change. Using our collections, they can devise innovative solutions to help us reverse or slow down global warming or even improve the resilience of our communities and economy. Most recently we realised that we can also amplify our impact through collaboration across the libraries sector and further afield, helping us drive toward a deeper commitment to do more and better.

Our buildings

Our organisational climate action starts with our own journey towards Net Zero. Over the last decade we have significantly reduced our carbon emissions and waste. Measured against a 2009/10 baseline, we reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 67% and our waste by 48% in 2019/2020.

2021-22 was a particularly exciting year in changing the way our buildings work for the better. Helped by a £1.3 million grant from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme we installed 1,477 photovoltaic panels on two buildings in our Boston Spa site in Yorkshire and the initial work has been completed for a Ground Source Heat Pump, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and generating an anticipated 1MW of energy - the equivalent of powering 650 average homes.  Solar panels on the rooftop of our buildings at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. [Photo: Dan Watts]

Our people and partnerships

We value the initiatives and actions taken by our staff in their day-to-day activities to help reduce their individual impact. This is driven by our staff-led Sustainability Group that was established two years ago. In April 2022 the group held its first conference to examine what sustainability means in theory and what it looks like in practice, both at the Library and for our partners. The group initiated practical action across different departments. This included a new monitor sleep policy put in place by our Technology team that reduced power consumption from almost 30 watts to 0.5 watts per monitor.

Over the last year a particular highlight has been developing changes alongside our colleagues and partners in the libraries sector. The Living Knowledge Network is a UK-wide network of public and national libraries. Initial discussions were kick started about the role that libraries already play in enabling positive climate action in communities. In October 2021, the Network hosted and convened nearly 100 public library partners to a workshop on libraries roles and climate change – the first event of its kind for the sector. 

The event inspired our next action step. Together with the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, Libraries Connected, Julie’s Bicycle and Arts Council England we started the Green Libraries Partnership. This partnership is a UK cross-sector initiative to support public libraries in building long term environmental understanding and action. We work together to find solutions as a team. So far we have launched the Green Libraries Grants to incentivise new initiatives and green innovation in library spaces. You can see the positive work that’s taken place in a survey from sustainability consultant Julie’s Bicycle. The Partnership launched the Green Libraries Manifesto to help us express our aspirations as a sector and collectively advance our sustainable practices. With signatories as far as Mexico and Ghana, the partnership holds so much potential to galvanise action and engagement in the UK and further afield.

Another key network is our Business & IP Centres in the heart of communities across the UK, which support the realisation of ideas to become brilliant new businesses. Over the last couple of years, a key thread of events to support ‘Eco-concious Entrepreneurs’ helped businesses to establish greener business practices.

Our collection and collaborations

When someone thinks of a library, they think books. Soon we will launch our first Environmentalist in Residence open call that will help to change perceptions of the ideas our collection can spark. We are developing new roles that aim to interpret and examine our science collections, shining a light on items that will help shape future research. 

In the meantime, we want as many people as possible to come on this journey with us. Recently we have hosted events and partnerships to engage with people of all ages and interests. This includes The Natural Word, a series of events and workshops that you can watch on the British Library Player. Ahead of COP26 in 2021, we worked in partnership with Blue Peter to launch Our Planet Now. This competition asked young people to submit a  poem or short story about taking climate action. We also collaborated with the British Fashion Council and designer Phoebe English who showcased sustainable fashion practices in an installation entitled Here: an alternative route, unveiled at the Library during London Fashion Week in September 2021 that went on to travel to the COP26 where Phoebe won ‘Leader of Change’ award in the Fashion Awards 2021. 

Detail of the installation by fashion designer Phoebe English.

The future

“Everything change” in a large organisation requires a lot of multidimensional thinking and it sometimes can seem overwhelming. Continuing to move forward is what really matters, even when the answers are not immediately obvious. We can advance by evolving different approaches and solutions while ensuring that environmental sustainability is at the heart of our decision-making. 

In the coming months, we will be further developing our strategic frameworks to ensure that sustainability and environmental action runs through all of our activities. This will mean plenty of new challenges ahead, such as developing a better understanding of our procurement chain and of our future commitment to Net Zero when it comes to our extensive digital activities. We are undertaking further research to make sure that we can improve our current plans for achieving Net Zero by 2030. And, as an organisation that helps spark new ideas, we continue to collaborate with others to grow climate knowledge and inspire positive climate action.

Maja Maricevic

Head of Higher Education and Science

 

In this special edition of Behind the Scenes, we sat down with Sandra A. Agard, our Learning Facilitator for Schools.

Sandra is also a well-renowned storyteller, writer, and cultural historian. She recently won an honorary fellowship with the Royal Society of Literature, as well as the Benson Medal; an award given to those who have demonstrated conspicuous service to literature throughout their career.

Sandra A. Agard.

 

What do you do as a Learning Facilitator for Schools?

‘We conduct creative arts workshops with primary and secondary schools. We organise workshops around the exhibitions - so currently there’s one on Alexander the Great. But we also do other workshops - we’ve got a creative writing one at the moment, we do the Black British Literature timeline, Windrush Voices, Sacred Texts, Listen Up - it’s vast. We do quite a few sessions using the British Library’s massive collections!’

 

Could you tell us about what you do outside of the Library?

‘Outside of the Library, I’m a writer, author, a book doctor, a literature consultant. I’m a creative writing tutor, and I mentor some young people in their creative writing, and life issues from time-to-time’.

 

How did you come to work at the British Library?

‘I’ve worked in public libraries for a long time. In 2016, I thought I’d retire.’

But then, Sandra saw the listing for the Learning Facilitator for Schools role, and decided to go for it.

‘I didn’t think I’d get it. I was in Nunhead doing a workshop, and I got a phone call from the Learning Manager. I got the job! You know when you do a happy dance? I did that!

'I was so, so pleased. I joined with Reuben Massiah, another Learning Facilitator - our first day was the first day of lockdown. I had dreams of walking to the Library, but it actually was from my bedroom upstairs to the computer in the living room. So that was bizarre, being introduced to the Library by the thing that’s always been my nemesis [technology].’

 

Can you tell us more about your previous work at libraries?

‘I started working at Islington Libraries as a Saturday assistant back in the mid-70s. Eventually I became a library advisor for racial groups in Islington; so I worked with the community. Those days – when Libraries had more funding – I would help community groups establish their own libraries.

'Then, I got the big jobs in Southwark and Lewisham as a Literature Development Officer. The role was to promote literature to the libraries, and to the wider community. And, because I was a writer and a storyteller, it extended – I did creative writing classes, book groups, storytelling training for families and librarians.

'I worked for a while in prisons, both men’s and women’s. I was a Reading Resident, where I developed book groups. It was very interesting, because you were working with people who had gone down a different path. Stories that I would tell children, I’d be telling these men and women, and for them it was really exciting. They’d say things like ‘if we’d had people like you in our lives, we wouldn’t be here now.’ It was one of the best times of my life, those couple of years I worked in those prisons.’

 

It’s those contributions to literature that earned you the Benson Medal and an honorary fellowship with the Royal Society of Literature. What do they mean to you?

‘They mean a lot. My mum and dad gave me my first exercise books where I would write my stories, so I always thank them first. Evelyn and Cecil Agard. They came from Guyana, South America, in the 1950s. They got married here, had my two younger sisters and me. I owe them everything.

'Mum was a nurse. She had five children, all girls, and she didn’t want any of us to be nurses. She was treated terribly. But she worked full time and brought us all up. Even though my mum was a night nurse, she made sure she was always there at my school plays in the morning. I was wondering, ‘when does she ever sleep?’ She was amazing.

‘My dad was a mathematician, he loved maths. He wanted to be an architect, but in the 50s, that wasn’t going to happen. So he worked at the British Oxygen Company as a Test Engineer and really stood up for the workers’ rights. We always used to go to Speaker’s Corner as children, so we were very political. Both my parents have passed now.

'And then, my beloved sister Brenda Agard, who passed in 2012. She was a photographer, writer extraordinaire, a wonderful person. And my Uncle John Agard - no relation to the poet - who told great stories. Those four people are very important to my life. I owe them everything.

'I always begin with family, because it’s so important. Our family’s very small now, but I’ve got my cousins, and my sister, and my nephew, and my sister’s partner. And I’ve always had a community of library people to help, they’ve just been fabulous. I’ve been very lucky. The medal is not just for me, but for all these people who have been in my journey.’

Sandra A. Agard accepting the Benson Medal, July 2022, Royal Society of Literature/Adrian Pope.

In discussing some of the world’s most-loved writers who also earned the Benson medal and RSL Honorary Fellowships, Sandra went on to say:

‘Well, C. S. Lewis. The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe is one of my all-time favourite books! And I think Tolkien – my goodness! In the company of these greats.

‘When you set out to do this, you don’t think you’re going to be awarded anything, you just do it. I do it for love. I’ve always had a passion for libraries, and reading, and books, and to be able to be a part of somebody else’s journey, to get them writing, to get them reading, to get them loving literature and words. And I’m doing that now here at the Library.

‘I’m always promoting the British Library! This is our national library, and people need to know it’s their library too. When I tell people I work at the British Library, eyebrows raise, and they exalt it - but no, it’s your building. It’s our national library. You should come here too.’

 

What do you love about the British Library?

‘I love the sense of place. When people come in, their breaths are taken away. It’s really exciting. I love working with the smaller children – this place kind of swamps them, but yet they’re part of it.

‘Yesterday, we had a group from Manchester, young girls. They saw Jane Austen's desk and the Blake drawings in our Treasures Gallery. They’ve been studying these writers, and now to see their artefacts, it puts things into perspective. It’s exciting for them; their teacher was overwhelmed, they were overwhelmed. When you see the joy that it gives people; it’s wonderful.’

 

Do you have a favourite item in the Library's collection?

Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole in Many Lands, 1857. Mary Seacole has often been described as the black Florence Nightingale, another nurse who came to public attention after reports of her selflessness in helping wounded soldiers during the Crimean War.

‘We have a first edition copy of Mary Seacole’s autobiography. Mary Seacole is very close to my heart. As a storyteller, I would wear a Georgian dress and re-tell her story through the eyes of her sister, Linda Grant. It was just fabulous!

‘So many people have remembered that. It was years ago, and a lot of people approach me and say ‘Oh, I remember you told Mary Seacole’s story!’ And to come into the Library and to see her original autobiography, which is still in print to this day, that, to me, is one of my favourite items.’

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, Phillis Wheatley, 1773. Shelfmark: 992.a.34.

‘We’ve got Phillis Wheatley’s manuscripts as well. They call her the ‘slave poet’. She was a young girl in America who was taken from Africa in 1761, and renamed Phillis after the boat she was brought on. She was educated by the family who purchased her, the Wheatleys, and she was very adept at reading and writing. As a young girl, she wrote poetry against slavery.

‘It was amazing to see her original copies, because her books couldn’t be published in America, so they were published here. This is what we’ve got here at the British Library! Original from all those years ago. It’s also on our Black British Literature timeline, which looks at 50 writers over 400 years of Black writing in this country.’

 

Any book recommendations?

‘Oh everything, read, read, read, read! Well, Malorie Blackman, who was a children’s laureate, and recently won the PEN Pinter Prize. She’s just had an autobiography released, Just Sayin’: My Life in Words. Definitely her autobiography.

‘And dare I say, I’ve got a new one out called The Lion Keeper. It’s a children’s fact-fiction book that tells of a young boy who’s taken from Africa. He was brought to the Tower of London to look after the Lions.

‘Also, I would urge everybody to learn a poem that they always keep in their hearts. I have two: Grace Nichols’ Give Yourself a Hug, and Shel Silverstein’s Snowball. Those are my two favourites. So always keep a poem in your heart, that’s what I’d say.’

 

Interview by Max Burt

SDP session at Arts Council England’s Youth Advisory Board, 24 September 2022.

Since our previous update in May, things have moved forward at pace on our project to develop a new platform for UK public libraries. A unified, national branded space online that will celebrate what people love most about libraries and enable local libraries to raise awareness of what they offer and share their content more widely online.

It feels especially appropriate to provide an update on the project in Libraries Week, during which many libraries across the country will be thinking about how they best serve their communities through uncertain times. It seems all the more relevant to be thinking about how we can ensure the new platform meets the needs of local libraries and the people they serve.

Work well underway

We now have a dedicated product team whose job it is to turn the platform it into a reality. Kicking off in early September, they have already made considerable progress towards defining what an early version of the platform will look like.

The new SDP product team, 1 September 2022.

We say ‘early version’ because this project is going to be an example of agile product development. This means that rather than coming up with an answer and building the solution – which cuts off opportunities to learn and adapt our approach – the team will build in iterative stages. We will design things that look real, test them with people, and aim to come away with insights that help us improve the user experience. Then we will follow the same process the next week. And so on.

This process is anchored in the notion that in order to solve real problems – be they for library staff, existing users or those who aren’t currently using libraries – we will get the best idea of what we need to build by showing people true-to-life examples and getting their real-time feedback.

Building in this way is a bold step for us. While agile product development underpins the construction of most of the apps and digital products you use on a day-to-day basis, they tend to be created by relatively young start-ups, built from the ground up to operate that way.

Building in collaboration

Building from the ground up is a key part of our approach for this project. That is why, throughout its design and development, we will be talking to library staff and users, as well as people who have rarely, if ever, set foot inside a library.

Our early explorations and discussions with public library staff have shown us that to build a truly national platform that supports loans and events will take considerable time. And while these services are still on the horizon, we’re now focusing on what we can deliver for the sector earlier, while continuing to learn what we need to do to build a more all-encompassing platform further down the road.

Of course, a project of this nature has many other moving parts. Over the last nine months, we have been working with experienced creative agency FCB Inferno to undertake in-depth research with libraries and audiences to develop the platform’s new name and look. We’ll be sharing this very soon, following testing of the final designs.

In addition, we’re holding regular show-and-tells with key colleagues here at the British Library and within the library sector. We’re also going to be starting monthly open drop-in sessions for sector stakeholders to attend from November.

Interested in hearing more? We’re sending out a regular email containing updates on the project for library staff. If you would like to receive it, please email us at [email protected].

Tiina Hill

Head of Delivery, LibraryOn