feb09b.indd


duce from nearby farms, steelheaddiner.com) 
fresh seafood, locally serves diner-inspired 
made jam and cheese, Pacific Northwest haute 
and many other tasty cuisine. 
treats from the Puget Many other down-
Sound area. The farm- town restaurants offer 
ers’ market bounty also local, seasonal food. 
appears in several res- Just steps from the 
taurants near the mar- convention center is 
ket. The Pike Brewing Organic To Go (601 
Company (1415 First Union St., Suite 224A, 
Ave., pikebrewing.com) organictogo.com, open 
features a pub menu Monday-Friday, 6:30 
with local produce, fi sh, a.m.-4 p.m.), which has 
meats, and handcrafted an entirely organic and 
beer. One of Seattle’s partially local menu. 
most famous chefs, Tom Brasa (2107 3rd Ave., 

Produce at Pike Place Market. Photo credit: 
Justin D. Henry. 

Douglas, showcases the region’s seafood 
at Etta’s (2020 Western Ave., tomdouglas. 
com/ettas). Chez Shea (top fl oor, Corner 
Market building, 94 Pike St., chezshea.com) 
offers a French approach to market-fresh 
ingredients, and Steelhead Diner (95 Pine St., 

brasa.com) serves up a Mediterranean take 
on Northwest ingredients. In the Elliott Bay 
Bookstore, Elliott Bay Cafe (101 South Main 
St., elliottbaybook.com/about/cafe), features 
a local-focus menu recently revised by Ta-
mara Murphy, the chef at Brasa. Union Square 

Six steps to greening your ACRL 14th National Conference experience 

The Green Conference Planning Commit­
tee for the ACRL National Conference has 
been working hard to build environmentally 
sustainable practices into this year’s confer­
ence in Seattle. Here are six ways to make 
this your greenest ACRL ever. 

1. Take the pledge. Earlier this year the 
Green Committee surveyed ACRL members 
to find out what mattered most in greening 
our conference.We used the results to draft 
the Green Pledge. 

The pledge asks all conference par­
ticipants to make sustainability a priority 
throughout the conference. Participants 
who take the pledge agree to learn, inform, 
think, and act sustainably in the months 
leading up to and during the conference. 

Some suggested pledge activities are 
walking or using public transportation, 
accessing handouts through ACRL’s virtual 
conference space, recycling paper hand­
outs (or not using them in the fi rst place), 
consulting the ACRL interactive confer­
ence map for local and green restaurants 

and businesses, and using the conference 
program to learn which vendors provide 
sustainable services and practices.You can 
review the Green Pledge at tinyurl.com/ 
greenpledge. 

The committee urges everyone to accept 
the Green Pledge when registering for the 
conference.Your participation in the Green 
Pledge effort will be reflected by a green leaf 
on your registration badge. 

2. Get green giveaways. All conference 
participants will receive green giveaways 
this year: a bag made of 51 percent recycled 
fabric and matching badge holder, and a corn 
plastic, BPA­free mug. 

You can make your giveaways even 
greener by recycling your badge holder be­
fore you leave the convention center—look 
for the drop box in the registration area. 

You’ll also have the opportunity to enter 
a drawing to win one free registration for the 
2011 ACRL conference in Philadelphia. If you 
miss us there, you can enter the drawing at 
the Green Speaker program, as well. 

C&RL News February 2009  100 

http:tinyurl.com
http:conference.We
http:brasa.com
http:chezshea.com
http:organictogo.com
http:pikebrewing.com
http:steelheaddiner.com


Grill (621 Union St., unionsquaregrill.com) 
and the restaurant at the Seattle Art Museum, 
TASTE (1300 1st Ave., tastesam.com), both 
rely heavily on Puget Sound-area ingredients 
for their “New American” meals. Farestart (700 
Virginia St., farestart.com, open Monday-Fri-
day, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and Thursdays 6-8 p.m.), 
a nonprofit that provides culinary training for 
students from disadvantaged backgrounds, 
puts local, seasonal food on the lunch table 
during the work week, and brings in premier 
local chefs for often sold out “Guest Chef 
Nights” on Thursday evenings. 

Pacific Northwest cuisine elsewhere in 
Seattle 
Those willing to venture beyond the urban 
core will find many options for sampling Pa-
cific Northwest cuisine in Seattle’s neighbor-
hoods. Seattle’s public transportation system 
is not as robust as it will be soon, with a 
light rail system scheduled to debut some-
time in 2009, but most of these restaurants 

3. Hear a great green speaker. The com­
mittee is delighted to present a featured 
Green Speaker. Robin Chase is cofounder 
and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest 
car­sharing company in the world. She is 
currently CEO of GoLoco, an innovative 
online ridesharing community. Chase has 
revolutionized the way people travel by 
combining transportation with social net­
working.Attend Chase’s session from 8 a.m. 
to 9 a.m Sunday, March 15. 

4. Learn how to green your own confer­
ence. For those interested in learning more 
about what it takes to green a conference, 
the Green Committee will offer a panel ses­
sion from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, 
March 14.We’ll talk about drafting the green 
survey and the corresponding pledge, strate­
gies for greening a convention center, how 
to investigate green hotel practices, lessons 
learned along the way, and more. 

5.Visit the Green Committee. Don’t for­
get to look for the Green Committee’s table 
in the convention center’s registration area. 

are a bus or taxi ride from downtown. Cabs 
can be hailed from most downtown hotels 
or requested by calling the local cab service 
(206-622-6500). Bus trips can be planned us-
ing Metro’s online Trip Planner (tripplanner. 
metrokc.gov) and by using other online tools 
(transit.google.com, busmonster.com, mybus. 
org, or onebusaway.org). 

Popular neighborhood restaurants that 
seek out the bounty of nearby farms and 
artisans include Pair (5501 30th Ave. NE, 
pairseattle.com), Lark (926 12th Ave, lark-
seattle.com), Stumbling Goat Bistro (6722 
Greenwood Ave. N, stumblinggoatbistro. 
com), and Volunteer Park Café (1501 17th 
Ave. E, alwaysfreshgoodness.com). “Sicilian 
soul food” made with local ingredients is the 
specialty at La Medusa (4857 Rainier Ave. S, 
lamedusarestaurant.com) in the Columbia 
City neighborhood. Succulent steak frites 
and other European dishes can be found at 
Fremont’s 35th Street Bistro (709 N. 35th St., 
35bistro.com). Also in Fremont is Tilth (1411 

We’ll answer your questions about “behind­
the­scenes” greening efforts (recycled pipe 
and drape, anyone?) and help you enter 
to win some great prizes. We’ll also have a 
recycling station for your paper handouts. 
If you haven’t already done so, you can take 
the Green Pledge there, and we’ll give you 
a sticker for your badge. 

6. Help spread the green. Because this 
will be ACRL’s first green conference, 
there’s a lot of excitement about com­
ing together to lessen our environmental 
impact in Seattle. There are already plans 
underway to carry this initiative forward 
into the future of ACRL conference plan­
ning.The Green Committee is looking to all 
of ACRL membership to help make our fi rst 
green conference a success!—Juliet Kerico 
is science and health sciences librarian at 
Southern Illinois University­Edwardsville, 
jkerico@siue.edu, and Karen Munro is 
head of the UO Portland Library and 
Learning Commons at the University of 
Oregon, kmunro@uoregon.edu 

February 2009  101 C&RL News 

mailto:kmunro@uoregon.edu
mailto:jkerico@siue.edu
http:35bistro.com
http:lamedusarestaurant.com
http:alwaysfreshgoodness.com
http:seattle.com
http:pairseattle.com
http:onebusaway.org
http:busmonster.com
http:transit.google.com
http:metrokc.gov
http:farestart.com
http:tastesam.com
http:unionsquaregrill.com