Attending the annual UCL Sustainability Awards yesterday at UCL East, it was a real pleasure to see the hard work of LCCOS in terms of Green Impact recognised with 12 Golds, four Silvers and two Bronzes. Many thanks to the Green Impact Teams and all colleagues across LCCOS. Each award represents a significant achievement and a shared commitment to sustainability.

Gold

1. Bloomsbury Theatre (Silver in 2024)
2. Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health Library
3. Institute of Archaeology Library
4. Institute of Education Library (Silver in 2024)
5. Joint Library of Ophthalmology, Moorfields Eye Hospital & UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
6. Language and Speech Science Library
7. Main Library
8. Royal Free Medical Library
9. School of Pharmacy Library
10. Science Library (Bronze in 2024)
11. UCL East
12. LCCOS (overarching departmental submission)

Silver

1. Bartlett Library
2. Cruciform Hub
3. Museums (new entry)
4. Wickford (Bronze in 2024)

Bronze

1. Institute of Orthopaedics Library
2. School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library

Our colleagues at Queen Square Library, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, also achieved a Gold Award.

For information on the LCCOS Sustainability Committee please visit our webpage on the intranet.

Across UCL real inroads have been made into UCL’s 2019-24 Sustainability Strategy, as detailed in the latest annual report. LCCOS has been part of that and with our own upcoming LCCOS Sustainability Plan we have the opportunity to celebrate what we do and to make further progress, in what is a continual journey.

Dear LCCOS Staff,

We are thrilled to announce the upcoming UCL200 capital works project, part of the UCL Estates Strategy. UCL’s aim is to enhance the campus experience for everyone who works, studies and visits here. The first phase of these projects, led by UCL Estates, will start ahead of 2026, introducing new initiatives focused on accessibility and sustainability. These changes will benefit students, staff, and visitors in the main central spaces of UCL. Additionally, the improvements will support exceptional events and engagement opportunities, enhancing infrastructure and creating multi-functional areas. The works include enhancing the Main Quad, improving functionality and community space in the Wilkins Building and enhancement and partial pedestrianisation of Gordon Street. Works will commence in January 2025.

Key Updates and Impacts:

• Art Museum Relocation: the Art Museum is being relocated to IAS rooms G17/G19, in the South Wing of the Wilkins Building, to facilitate the building works.
• Object-Based Learning Laboratory: this facility will be relocated to the Garden Room for the duration of the works.
• Main Library Entrance: the entrance to the Main Library will be temporarily moved to the first-floor South Junction entrance, following work to adapt the space to accommodate security and library membership.

Timeline and Preparations:

• Start Date: the building works are scheduled to begin in early January. While we are still finalising the timeline, our teams are diligently preparing for these changes.
• Signage and Re-routing: we are working on clear signage and rerouting plans for our users, including those visiting the museums, the Object-Based Learning Lab, and the Main Library.
• Providing alternative office space to displaced staff who will be moving into the Main Library.
• End date: all works should be complete by December 2025.

Important Information:

• Access Restrictions: from January, access to the Cloisters, the Octagon, the Main Library entrance, and the Object-Based Learning Lab will be closed. Please consider alternative access routes when planning activities or creating printed directional materials.
• Disruptions: there may be disruptions due to noise, dust, and other impacts of the building work starting from 06 January. It might be necessary to direct library users to alternative facilities during this time.

We understand that these changes may cause some inconvenience, but we are confident that the end result will be worth it. Once the contractor is in place and we have a detailed program of works, we will provide more information.

If you have any concerns, please contact Jay Woodhouse or Rebecca Bashan.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation during this time of change!

Please feel free to share this information with service stakeholders.

Yesterday’s UCL Sustainability Awards 2024 saw 18 teams from across LCCOS recognised for their part in Green Impact, a UCL wide competition, using a scheme shared by over 1,500 organisations across 7 countries.   A fantastic result saw LCCOS awarded 12 Golds (up from 10 in 2023), 3 silvers and 3 bronzes:

Gold

• Bartlett Library
• Cruciform Hub
• Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health Library
• Institute of Archaeology Library
• Joint Library of Ophthalmology, Moorfields Eye Hospital & UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
• Language and Speech Science Library
• Main Library
• Royal Free Medical Library
• School of Pharmacy Library
• Student Centre Library Team
• UCL East
• Central LCCOS Services (overarching departmental submission)

Silver

• Bloomsbury Theatre
• Institute of Education Library
• Institute of Orthopaedics Library

Bronze

• School of Slavonic and East European Studies Libraries
• Science Library
• Wickford

Our colleagues at the Queen Square Library, UCL Institute of Neurology, also succeeded in achieving a Gold Award.

Many thanks to the teams and all LCCOS colleagues for their support.  It has made a difference.

For more information on the LCCOS Sustainability Committee please see our intranet pages and for the latest Sustainable UCL achievements across the university take a look at the 2022-23 Annual Report which was released on Monday.

Sustainable UCL has just released its latest Annual Report, for the period 2021-22.
As UCL’s President & Provost writes in the Foreword –

“Over the past decade, the drive and ambition of the UCL community to foster a sustainable future has elevated UCL to the status of a sustainability leader within the HE sector”.

Whilst acknowledging challenges, and that some factors outside of UCL’s control have enabled UCL to make progress in some sustainability areas, there is much to celebrate.

Highlights include:

• 53% carbon reduction in building energy use in 21-22 compared to 18-19
• 188 sustainability-related teaching modules and 115 climate-related modules, up by 46 from 20-21
• UCL re-certified for international standards for energy & environment ISO 14001 / 50001
• Green Impact and Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework had record participation.
• 100% disposable-free hospitality service. Launch of Club Zero, a campus cup-returning scheme alongside a 25p disposable cup charge.

Our LCCOS Green Champions, and indeed all LCCOS staff, have been part of this success.

Going forward UCL will be developing a new ambitious Sustainability Plan and here in LCCOS we will continue to support this with our Strategy‘s commitment to “Prioritise sustainability in the way we work and develop”.

For more information on LCCOS and sustainability please visit our webpage.

Michelle Wake (Chair of LCCOS Sustainability Committee)
Site Libraries Manager & Senior Librarian, UCL School of Pharmacy

This month’s UCL Sustainability Awards Ceremony saw the LCCOS Green Champions excel themselves. Our teams made submissions as part of UCL’s Green Impact, a UCL wide accreditation scheme devised by the education charity Students Organising for Sustainability UK. It’s a scheme that has won awards from UNESCO and the charity have now worked with nearly 2,000 institutions.

The excellence of our LCCOS teams was recognised with 10 Golds, 4 Silvers and 4 Bronzes:

Gold

• Cruciform Hub
• Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health Library
• Institute of Archaeology Library
• Joint Library of Ophthalmology, Moorfields Eye Hospital & UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
• Language and Speech Science Library
• Main Library
• Royal Free Medical Library
• School of Pharmacy Library
• Science Library
• Central LCCOS Services (overarching departmental submission)

Silver

• Bartlett Library
• Bloomsbury Theatre
• Senate House Hub
• Student Centre Library Team

Bronze

• Institute of Education Library
• Institute of Orthopaedics Library
• School of Slavonic and East European Studies Libraries
• Wickford

Our close colleagues at the Queen Square Library, UCL Institute of Neurology, also succeeded in achieving a Gold Award.

This year’s Green Impact saw an increased recognition of the links with wellbeing and our teams highlighted this with the greening of office and customer spaces using plants and promoting and organising walks, amongst other initiatives.

Many congratulations to all our teams and to all of you, who have supported their efforts.

Find out more

For more information on the LCCOS Sustainability Committee and the Green Impact Champions please visit our committee webpage on the LCCOS Intranet and do contact the Committee Chair Michelle Wake (m.wake@ucl.ac.uk) or our Departmental Environment Officer Collette Lawrence (c.lawrence@ucl.ac.uk) if you are interested in forming a team, have suggestions or comments around sustainability.

Abi Heath , Library Manager, UCL School of Pharmacy, reflects on the recent conference organised by the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries.

This year’s M25 conference theme was Sustainability and Kindness and two of School of Phrmacy (SoP) Library staff presented on how we have embedded sustainability and wellbeing at SoP Library. Our talk looked at the initiatives we introduced as part of our Green Impact Award with a particular focus on our induction plant giveaway as well as looking at our wellbeing activities. Alongside the success of these initiatives, we talked about some of the challenges of these activities as well as what we would like to do in the future. Whilst people liked the idea of houseplants an archivist did raise the question of these attracting pests!

Other presentations looked at CILIP’s Green Libraries Partnership, estate initiatives from beehives to building fabric at London Met and Royal Veterinary College, the journey of sustainability at University of West London and staff CPD and green initiatives schemes at Royal Holloway.

It was interesting to see what our universities are doing to tackle the climate emergency and we left the conference with a range of ideas. It was also great to see that a lot of the initiatives are ones that SoP and other UCL libraries have already implemented.

Highlights and food for thought included:

• Learning about CILIP’s Green Libraries Manifesto
• Seeing how particular collections can highlight the impact of climate change – the National Library of Scotland used its historic maps to show the impact of costal erosion.
• London Met initiative around recycling Halloween costumes and encouraging students to make their own costume instead.
• Bean to Bean – using old coffee cups to grow plants in.
• Including litter picking as part of campus walks.

The recordings of all presentations are available on the members area of the M25 website.

Some of you may already be aware, as this has taken place on many of our LCCOS sites already, we are currently working with Estates colleagues to carry out essential fixed wire testing across the UCL community. These tests are to ensure that all distribution boards, data facilities, electrical circuits, power, and lighting are working correctly and meet legal requirements.

The School of Pharmacy Building will experience a full building shut down, on each riser, on the following times and dates:

• Riser A, Friday 16th June 2023, between 09.00-12.00
• Riser D, Wednesday 21st June 2023, between 09.00-12.00
• Riser C, Friday 23^rd June 2023, between 09.00-12.00

The library will be closed for this testing to take place, and only essential staff will be permitted on site, resulting in the library space being closed for the duration of the above times and dates.

We apologies for any inconvenience caused by these works and we appreciate your continued support and patience.

If you have any issues or queries regarding this, please contact the Library Facilities & Projects Team.

The Main Library, Institute of Archaeology Library and IOE Library were all top ten winning teams in the Nearby Nature Spring Competition.

The Main Library team won first place after submitting a total of 48 locations.

The three teams now have access to £100 to spend on something to improve wellbeing and/or sustainability in their areas.

Carmen de Paz, from the Main Library, said

“I was very happy to participate and share my favourite nature spots in London. I have also started visiting the places suggested by other groups and I have joined some local walks.”

Nicholas Bieber, from the Institute of Archaeology Library, said:

“The Nearby Nature campaign was a great idea, I like to go for walks on my breaks, and the competition got me to explore places I might not otherwise have reached. The result is a really useful resource to find some wonderful spots to eat lunch and add to walks.”

The UCL Nearby Nature map now has over 400 locations which have been added by members of the UCL community. The app has been viewed over 11,000 times.

The Occupational Health and Wellbeing team are currently organising a series of walks led by UCL colleagues.

Portico: surrounded by nature.

Earlier in Term 2, a number of colleagues from across Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science gathered to explore sustainability in the department. I wanted to share the video from the event, which has been niftily organised into chapters by Meghan Flight in the LCCOS Comms (I hasten to add that the video has been available for some time, but I have been tardy in putting together this short write-up!).

The session opened with a presentation from Max Vidotto (Sustainable UCL Business Partner for LCCOS), followed by talks from Sarah Lawson (Queen Square Library) on sustainable action from a site library point of view, and Collette Lawrence (LCCOS Facilities & Projects) on the LCCOS Sustainability Reference Guide. I thoroughly enjoyed the interesting presentations and the engaged interactive parts of the meeting, which I compered as chair of the Sustainability Committee with support from Meghan and Rowena on the Q&A session. What came across in the event was that there is a significant interest in sustainability and a lot of creative ideas from colleagues on how we can make LCCOS even more environmentally responsible. I hope that this will be the first of a series of events, which might become an annual occurrence.

As I have written about previously (in 2022, 2021, 2020, – you get the idea!), I am very proud of our achievements in the sustainability arena over the years. We are one of the best performing departments in UCL and I would argue one of the most active academic library services in the UK when it comes to sustainability. It has been an absolute privilege coordinating some of the work, and mostly keeping abreast of the committed efforts of Green Champions across the department. Within LCCOS, colleagues in the museums and the Theatre are initiating Green Impact in new areas, and I am sure there will be more good practice developing over the coming months and years.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Michelle Wake for agreeing to take the Chair of the LCCOS Sustainability Committee, with effect from my departure from UCL (tomorrow).

All the best in your endeavours to make LCCOS a beacon for sustainable libraries!

After a rather wet start to the day, the skies brightened up over the Olympic Park last Friday afternoon, just in time for the handover ceremony where building contractors Mace handed over the keys to UCL East’s latest addition – Marshgate.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the occasion, which was described officially in the UCL News, where the significance of the milestone is described. I am taking this opportunity to share my reflections on the building and amateurish photos of the library and learning spaces…

Firstly, it is monumental – as described in the press release – “the biggest structure on any of UCL’s campuses, measuring six times the size of the UCL Student Centre”. It is very much a statement, right next to the London Stadium, placing UCL at the heart of East Bank – the cultural district that is intended as the 2012 Olympics’ legacy.

But size isn’t everything, of course. I was wowed by the grandeur of the atrium space, which even unfurnished and empty of students and staff, had a warmth and sense of conviviality you would not expect from an exposed concrete building. The main foyer will host public art exhibitions, to welcome and provoke visitors to the campus.

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