As part of my PD&R and also because I’m interested in it, I have been looking at reducing the use (and waste) of paper.
As a group the Education Liaison Librarians have implemented these ideas:
All lesson plans and hand-outs etc. to be proof-read by a colleague before printing.
Worksheets to be one between two students (also encourages collaborative learning).
Only provide hand-outs where the students will be immediately applying the information (e.g. not in general beginning of the year classes)
Reduced feedback forms to A5 size (We considered online feedback but decided against it as our classes usually have 2 students per computer and it would have halved the number of responses)
I’m keen for other ideas to further reduce paper wastage. If you have any ideas or comments about what’s happening in your area, I would really appreciate it if you could either post your responses here or email me.
Thanks
Caroline
Having just battled with the continuing resources subscription lists to try and get them onto A3 (!) I try to squeeze as much as possible out of the margins – usually have 0.6-0.9cm from the top/bottom/left/right (or as little as Excel or Word will allow) and the other thing I tend to use is printing e.g 2-4 pages per sheet (this option is under File/Print). Probably depends how good your eyes are for that one and if it is for your own use only. Like your proof-reading idea – I am very aware of being too wordy sometimes. Can you say it more concisely? Often the answer is yes (http://wiki.canterbury.ac.n…)
Here’s an idea: At meetings, the agenda and the minutes of the past meeting could be projected on to a screen when such meetings are held in rooms that have such resources. People should have read them prior to the meeting so there is not a great need for people to have printed individual copies. It might be worth trying to see how well it works.
Caroline Anderson
Thanks very much for your suggestions Tim and Caroline. 🙂 CS