Environmentally Sustainable Library Buildings: Opportunities and Challenges for Asian Countries

Energy crisis and environmental challenges are becoming greater economic, health and social concerns of the day. Building design and construction processes, whether in the developing or developed world, have to address environmental issues. Library buildings, commonly known as intellectually stimulating and scholarly community places, have been, for some time dealing with this pressing need in quite a few countries. The Green Library Movement discussions in terms of building design and construction of libraries have been going on for a few decades, but only a handful of libraries with green or environmentally sustainable design have been built so far in the Asian context. In most cases, the budget allocation for library buildings is low making the case for sustainable and energy efficient buildings, stronger. This research tries to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of green or environmentally sustainable library buildings, focusing specifically on Asian countries with locally available resources, standards and climate assessments.