By Bernard T. Davidow, Adult Services, Wilbraham Public Library
Nearly a dozen public libraries in western Massachusetts are collaborating on a regional approach to climate-change programming.
They are leveraging a key community partnership and tapping local resources in a shared effort to focus closely on climate challenges and opportunities in the cities and towns they serve.
The collective, known as the Pioneer Valley Library Collaborative, was founded in 2021. The seed was planted by a volunteer environmental group in Granville called Voices 4 Climate, which had approached local libraries with the idea of combining forces. Southwick and Granville were quickly on board, and others soon followed. There are now 10 member libraries. 
Voices member Andrea Bugbee said libraries were a natural partner for educating the public on climate-related issues.
“We had information to share, and sharing information is what libraries are all about, so it just made sense,” Bugbee said in a recent email exchange. “Once we started building the network, we discovered the alignment was ideal because libraries and climate change both touch people across every age and background, and in lots of different ways.”
The collaborative planned and promoted its first slate of Climate Preparedness Week activities in September 2021.
Last year, they assembled a resource list of local experts available for local programming. Each entry on the list contains the topic, descriptions of the presenter and subject matter, contact information, fee (if there is one), and the name of the library that added that resource to the list. There are more than 30 entries in all, with separate sections for adults, families, teens and kids. 
Topics include beekeeping, climate justice, upcycling, eating local, heat pumps, environmentally friendly lawns, and climate 101.
The experts are willing to travel locally for their presentations but not necessarily out of the region.
“I think it's … important to keep it local,” said Lynn Blair, director of Southwick Public Library and currently lead facilitator of the PVLC. “We don't want to go too big.”
Bigness means more coordination, more complexity. In other words, it could dilute the very local-ness that is so important to the regional approach. “I think we're a good size,” Blair said.
Here is the current lineup of PVLC libraries:
Other libraries have participated in or helped promote PVLC activities but have not joined the group.
The collaborative has its own website, hosted by Forbes Library in Northampton. The site, www.forbeslibrary.org/pvlc, opened just in time to promote Climate Preparedness Week activities last September, though it could play a greater role in promoting activities year-round in the future. 
Last September, the collaborative ran an ad in a local, free newspaper to promote a keynote speech and Climate Preparedness Week in general. Libraries promoted each other’s programs on Facebook and other social media. Local news media also ran stories citing the group.
PVLC’s work is one piece of a statewide effort to boost climate-related programming in public libraries, particularly through the Blue Marble Librarians, which formed in 2019 to promote Climate Prep Week and the establishment of Climate Resilience Hubs throughout the state, in collaboration with the nonprofit group Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW).
Michelle Eberle, a Blue Marble librarian as well as a consultant with the Massachusetts Library System, said in an email: “The Pioneer Valley Library Collaborative is an innovative partnership that provides a stellar lineup of programs for Climate Prep Week.
“We are living through a climate crisis, and the PVLC's educational programs empower neighboring communities to work together to prepare for extreme weather and to increase environmentalism. I’d love to see this partnership replicated by libraries in local geographic areas across the Commonwealth,” Eberle said.
Blair, of PVLC, credits Voices 4 Climate with getting the ball rolling and remaining a reliable partner. “I think the partnership is really important,” she said. “They bring in different skills, different knowledge.” 
Bugbee, too, appreciates the partnership – and the collaboration among libraries.
“Every job is easier with an ally by your side,” she said. “Besides, it made no sense for each library to individually come up with their own programs when we could save everybody time and effort by working as a team. This is one case where many hands really did make light work.”
The collaborative meets on a Zoom call every few months, which increases to once a month as Climate Preparedness Week approaches in late September. When we talked in February, Blair said libraries were already starting to book for September. 
Could the collaborative lead to greater cooperation in other areas? While not ruling it out – “if subgroups branch off, that’d be great” – Blair she said the focus will remain on climate.
And on the region.
Bugbee put it this way: “Another thing libraries and climate change have in common is that both are locally unique. Is climate change going to disrupt life for residents all over Massachusetts? Almost definitely. But those problems will be different in Boston and the Cape than in Springfield or Wilbraham.
“Having local programs and presenters is just more meaningful,” she said. “Newton residents probably aren't worried about losing their maple sugar harvest, but in Granville and Westhampton, that's a topic people want to talk about.”
Photos courtesy of A. Bugbee, Lise LeTellier, Westhampton Public Library
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