قائمة المحتويات وكلمة رئيس التحرير بعنوان: من المكتبات الخضراء إلى الوظائف الخضراء

From Green Libraries to Green Jobs
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched by the UN on September 25, 2015, and later abbreviated to the "Global Goals", continue to receive great attention and eagerness to achieve them by different organizations, including libraries and cultural institutions, in most countries of the world. This is since this set of goals represents a framework that allows these institutions to achieve accomplishments in various sectors and at all levels. Perhaps the most prominent of these goals, and related to the essence of this opening speech, are ensuring quality comprehensive education for all segments of society, enhancing lifelong learning opportunities, creating a flexible infrastructure & promoting the concept of sustainable manufacturing and encouraging innovation, and making cities inclusive, safe and sustainable. These goals are unified by a shared goal: to achieve the concept of sustainable development that meets the needs of societies at the present time without affecting the ability of future generations to meet their own future needs.
From this standpoint, the concept of green libraries should not be limited to transforming library buildings into green buildings that achieve an abundance of green spaces inside them or the sustainability of their water and energy resources or achieving air quality and reducing sources of pollution and the carbon footprint inside their buildings, in addition to managing the resulting waste. But rather it goes beyond that to creating jobs with established values ​​and roles with new names; I mean here "green jobs". According to the definition of the International Labor Organization-ILO ^([1]), they are "these jobs that contribute to preserving or restoring the environment, whether in traditional sectors such as: manufacturing and construction, or in new emerging green sectors such as: renewable energy and energy efficiency". Thus, it is not only related to the concept of the green economy, but its impact extends to the rest of the other colors of the economy: white economy, orange economy, red economy, purple economy (violet), blue economy, and brown economy.
Individuals in green jobs typically contribute to numerous organizational benefits, including but not limited to:

Foster energy and unrefined materials
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Cut back waste and pollution
Safeguard and rebuild ecosystems
Adapt the effect of climate change

The question that imposes itself at the end of this editorial word is: can we describe the job of the librarian, or information specialist, or knowledge management officer, or any of the jobs that may emerge in libraries and cultural institutions as green jobs? In my opinion, these jobs are the greenest, or let’s say the royal green, among all green jobs. This isn't a result of favoritism toward my area of expertise, but because the reality of the situation confirms that green jobs characteristics strongly align with in the library staff, regardless of his/her title, and the tasks and responsibilities associated with them are deeply rooted in the job descriptions of libraries and cultural institutions personnel.
Editor-in-Chief
Professor Amal W. H. Mostafa
Research of library and
information science Journal
[1]
International Labour Organization (ILO). (2016, April 13). What is a green job? Retrieved from Advancing social justice, promoting decent work: https://www.ilo.org/resource/article/what-green-job