The Olive Free Library is nearing the final step toward official certification as a Sustainable Library, an effort Library Director Melissa McHugh took on soon after starting the job in 2023. If approved in June, the library would become the third in the Mid-Hudson Library System to earn the designation through the Sustainable Libraries Initiative.
Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, executive director of the Mid-Hudson Library System, created the initiative with Matthew Bollerman, then president of the New York Library Association, after the two concluded that libraries could help model local responses to the climate crisis. The initiative, founded in 2015 and now international in scope, received the first Green Libraries Award from the International Federation of Library Associations in 2019.
At the heart of the program are three focus areas: environmental stewardship, fiscal responsibility and social equity. Libraries work from a list of 140 actions across 12 categories, with some requirements mandatory and others selected based on local needs. The goal, Aldrich said, is to reshape a library’s organizational culture so it can serve as a model for the wider community. It “works for small and large libraries alike,” she said.
“It was a little daunting at first,” McHugh said, but the library board unanimously agreed to adopt a sustainability policy and work toward certification.
Aldrich said she was “proud of the Olive library.”
“They’re a great team over there,” she said.
One of the most visible changes at the Olive library is a new pollinator garden designed pro bono by Diane Greenberg of Catskill Native Nursery. The space includes benches, stepping stones and about 20 native plant species, with one section resembling an alpine rock garden.
The site posed a challenge, Greenberg said.
“It’s a western exposure against a brick building so the plants would be in cool shade for about half the day and then blasted by the hot afternoon sun for two to four hours,” she said.
Her selections included shrubs such as red chokeberry and perennials including wild columbine, foxglove beardtongue and smooth aster. Like other parts of the sustainability effort, the garden was designed to give community members ideas they could adapt at home.
Another major change was the installation of programmable, dimmable LED lighting to replace the library’s older system. Funded by a state grant, the project was completed in recent weeks.
To meet the fiscal responsibility portion of the certification, the library board has been working to reduce its reliance on grant funding as a core part of the operating budget and to ensure that all staff members receive a living wage.
McHugh said that was the “biggest lift.”
Still, she said, “the town is very passionate about the library.”
In November, voters approved a nearly 50% increase in the library’s operating budget, to $289,642, by a 1,211-698 vote. McHugh said the additional support made it possible, among other things, to expand outreach by opening a branch in Shokan, making library services more accessible for residents on the other side of the Ashokan Reservoir from the main branch in West Shokan. About 85% of the books at the branch were repurposed from other libraries.
The social equity component is also central to the effort. The Olive Free Library states that it “is committed to a culture of inclusion and mutual respect that welcomes the differences and variety of backgrounds, perspectives, interests and talents represented by the members served and our staff members.”
McHugh said recent federal pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts would not change that.
“That’s a big part of who we are,” she said, “so we’re not going to budge on that.”
Library programming reflects that broad community focus. Many presentations are funded by local businesses through the Community Partnership Program, including recent talks on Guatemalan dolls and Hungarian stitching. On Saturday at 1 p.m., ethnoecologist Justin Wexler is scheduled to speak about animals that once roamed the Catskills and their roles in Indigenous folklore and land use.
Margaret Tomlinson is a contributing writer. You can send her an email at reporting@theoverlooknews.com.