I want first of all to thank Manan Chandra for the thoughtful suggestions in Tuesday’s “Leading by Example” column, reminding us of the obligation that we all have to use energy wisely.  Manan is absolutely right in pointing out that D.H. Hill Library is open at almost all hours and that lighting the building and running its computers and other equipment demand significant amounts of electricity.

Reducing our energy footprint is something that we’ve been looking at for some years.  As Manan suggested, using sensors to control lighting when no one is actually in an area seems like a great solution.  However, D. H. Hill is actually a collection of four almost separate buildings, built over a half a dozen decades. the West Wing, for instance, was built in 1952 to be the University Student Center.  As the frequent fire alarms of the past show, creating a cohesive, affordable electrical control system from this maze of construction is a constant and costly challenge.  When push comes to shove, as it has during the recent fiscal crisis, we put the fire alarm system at the top of the list because student and staff safety is always a priority.  

We do, in fact, have sensors in some of the libraries less complicated spaces, including group study rooms.   But once we move to more complex areas, we immediately run into problems that show us just how costly and complicated this is likely to be.  Imagine the complexity of, say, adequately placing and controlling sensors on a typical floor in library stacks, with desks tucked into every available nook and corner, with the book stacks blocking lines of sight, with students sometimes not making substantial movements for long periods while they work.  And hovering over it all is a significant safety issue.  Though our number of users does drop at night, we still have hundreds doing work all over the building at any given time.  Until we can afford a more sophisticated, fail-safe lighting control system, we have to err on the side of student safety.  Even if it’s a very unlikely event, we can’t contemplate the potential results of someone finding himself or herself on a suddenly darkened floor with someone whose intentions are not good.  Over and over again, students tell us they love D.H. Hill because it is a safe, comfortable place that is always available at 3 a. m. when time is short and the paper is due.  It is, more than one student has told me, quite literally a light in the dark.  We can’t do anything that would jeopardize that sense of safety.  

Which is not to say that we haven’t mounted a substantial campaign to drive down our energy usage. For one, we are leading the University in technology advances to save power on desktop and laptop computing. We are now deploying new thin-client computers that use as little as 15 percent of the power of today’s desktops; we are virtualizing our servers to save up to 30 percent on the power we use in running our infrastructure; we buy only EPEAT gold-rated desktops, laptops, and monitors. EPEAT certifies computer equipment for environmental friendliness, including Energy Star ratings.  Recently we put in place six book scanners to divert copying away from traditional copiers. Scanners use a fraction of the energy and have none of the associated waste of paper, toner, disposables, etc.

So, in the ways that can immediately save money and energy, we are making progress.  But we really hope to start leading by example when the new Hunt Library is finished next year.  It will be the first new-construction LEED-certified building on campus, including everything from a rain garden to filter the runoff water from the roof, to a state-of-the-art energy control system, to a top-to-bottom Green IT computing strategy focused on reducing power consumption and other waste from its IT infrastructure.

And once Hunt is online and the current fiscal problems have turned around, D.H. Hill will be in for a makeover, one that will include a good hard look at how we can further cut its environmental impact.  

Patrick Deaton is the assistant director for Learning Spaces and Capital Management of the NCSU Libraries.