Environmentally friendly publishing

The student-run publishing house Ooligan Press has housed, since winter 2009, the Sustainable Publishing Initiative. Graduate students Janine Eckhart and Melissa Brumer founded the movement last year to teach themselves about sustainable publishing methods, according to their first book, Rethinking Paper and Ink: The Sustainable Publishing Revolution.

Jessie Carver, graduate student and co-manager of the Sustainable Publishing Initiative (SPI) with fellow student Natalie Guidry, said that Rethinking Paper and Ink was a “collaboration among Ooligan students, the Green Press Initiative and sustainable publishing professionals.”

According to the inscription of the book, “Sustainability means meeting the economic, social, and environmental needs of the present without compromising the similar needs of future generations.”
Rethinking Paper and Ink is Ooligan’s first book in the SPI OpenBook series.

 “[It is] so named because of our commitment to transparency in our efforts to produce a line of books using the most sustainable materials and processes available to us,” the authors explain on the first page.

In the section titled, “Producing This Book: A Creation Story,” the authors explain that they “set out to create an attractive, high-quality and affordable product (unit cost was just over $3); we also tried to use local services and resources as much as possible and to publish a book that demonstrates its own message: sustainable book design, and production is possible, affordable and attractive.”

Indeed, the book looks and feels recycled while maintaining a certain sophistication and grace. The cover is light brown with a silhouetted picture of trees in front of a mountain in a contrasting shade of dark brown, and the title, subtitle and the words Ooligan Press are in white.

Each book, in addition to bearing the OpenBook logo, will contain an OpenBookAudit, which lists the sources of the book’s materials and how it was manufactured.

According to the OpenBookAudit of Rethinking Paper and Ink, the 1,000 copies printed on recycled rather than conventional paper saved 2 million BTUs of total energy associated with paper production and prevented the release of 1,250 gallons of wastewater and 160 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent.

The ink of Rethinking Paper and Ink is soy and manufactured by Great Western Ink in Portland.
“The food-grade soybeans are grown conventionally by various soy farms in the Midwestern United States,” Carver said.

She also said that students involved in the SPI hope Rethinking Paper and Ink will help publishers “to integrate sustainability into their operations as well.”

Those interested can download a free PDF version of Rethinking Paper and Ink from www.ooliganpress.pdx.edu/sustainability under the tab labeled OpenBook Series.

“At PSU, we’re integrating sustainability throughout our curriculum, from courses in business and sociology to courses in architecture and engineering,” wrote Portland State President Wim Wiewel in the book’s foreward. “Our goal is for a PSU degree to represent not only completion of an academic program, but also having achieved literacy in sustainability.”

In keeping with Wiewel’s vision of sustainability at PSU, Rethinking Paper and Ink includes a “Guide to Responsible Office Practices, Printing, and Paper Use,” as well as a list of ways in which Portland State students can get involved in sustainability through coursework such as “Political Science 319: Politics of the Environment” and student groups such as the Bike Co-op and Vegans for Animal Advocacy.

Last fall, the SPI published a second edition of Cataclysms on the Columbia: The Great Missoula Floods as a part of the OpenBook series.

Recently, the SPI released a revised edition of Classroom Publishing. Dennis Stovall, the founder of Ooligan Press, coauthored Classroom Publishing with Laurie King in 1992 and subsequently used it as the basis for Portland State’s Publishing curriculum.

The SPI will hold a book release party for Classroom Publishing on Feb. 19 from 7 to 9 p.m. at p:ear, located at 338 NW Sixth Ave.

When asked about current projects, Carver said the SPI is plenty busy.

“In progress for our OpenBook series we have Brew to Bikes by Charles Heying, a fantastic book on the unique artisan community in Portland, which will be published this autumn,” she said. “Natalie and I are also co-authoring an updated, expanded second edition of Rethinking Paper and Ink, which is a full-sized book set to be published this coming winter.”