Shelves or servers? We measure both — environmentally, economically and socially — in Switzerland, the UK and the Netherlands.
National libraries safeguard a nation's published heritage, preserving it for future generations. We collect for legal, scholarly, and cultural reasons, though the nature of published content is changing. Our collections are increasingly hybrid: stored not only on shelves but also on servers. ReVerDi asks what an optimal mix of physical and digital looks like, and measures it across three dimensions: environmental, economic, and social. Is print or digital better, for whom, and in what circumstances? How can we truly quantify the impact of collecting?
Energy, CO₂, water and resource use across the full life cycle of physical and digital media.
Investment and operating costs — and the public value libraries create for society.
Access, inclusion, working conditions and the safeguarding of cultural heritage.
Researchers from the partner universities and national libraries, bridging economics, data science, environmental assessment, architecture, law and conservation.
Researchers outside the consortium who co-authored ReVerDi publications with the team.
The project runs across several strands — and one of them you can walk through yourself.
Peer-reviewed papers on the environmental, economic and social sustainability of libraries and digitisation.
What national libraries open on Wikimedia Commons, where it travels, and what generative AI does to its value.
Walk one reader through four decisions — what to read, paper or screen, how you travel, how long — and see the life-cycle emissions that follow.
Each output is tagged with the sustainability pillars it addresses — ● environmental, ● economic, ● social.
Recent milestones from the project.
Maureen Pennock (British Library) and James Suckling (University of Surrey) will present “Sustainable Collecting: The Big Picture” at the 2026 European Print Initiatives Collaboration (EPICo) conference, British Library, London, 30 September – 2 October 2026.
Registration now open →
Our work will be presented at the European Academy of Management Annual Conference (16–19 June 2026, University of Agder, Norway) — theme “Navigating High Waters”.
About the conference →
As synthetic images become free, does the world still want the real, authenticated one? Our newest strand tracks demand for genuine heritage images before and after the rise of generative AI.
Explore the strand →Our open-access study in Cleaner and Responsible Consumption combines life-cycle assessment with economic evidence — and shows that e-books reduce emissions only if they genuinely replace print.
Read the paper →The full international team gathered at Bern University of Applied Sciences to align the environmental, economic and social work strands and plan the next phase.
Read the blog post →New results on evidence-based digital preservation and on the economic value of open cultural heritage were shared with the international research community in Rotterdam and beyond.
A public outreach event planned together with the Swiss National Library and the Federal Office of Culture, bringing the project's findings to a wider audience.
