Transition Leicester Library

Between all the people involved in Transition Leicester we've got a fantastic collection of books, DVDs and magazines sitting on our respective bookshelves, full of ideas to inform and inspire on issues related to Transition. A lot of these resources aren't easy to find around the city or in Leicester's libraries.

So, the idea of the Transition Leicester Library is to share things that we find inspiring or useful, so that other people can get hold of them, without the need to spend lots of money buying individual copies. It also means we can buy in items for everyone to share.

We're starting out mostly with lots of books and DVDs on peak oil and climate change, but we want to keep adding to the collection to cover all issues related to Transition... DIY eco-renovation, organic and low-input food growing, sustainable economics, fiction that explores Transition-related issues, guides to local shops and services and anything else that people think needs adding...

How does it work?

The library will work in two ways. We'll have a main collection of items that will be available to borrow at the monthly Transition Cafes in the foyer at Bishop St Methodist Church.

We'll also have a list on this page of the website of books that are still living on their owner's bookshelf, but which are available to borrow if you contact the person in question.

How to help.

We need people to come forward to offer to share items for the library. There are 3 ways you can do this: just by offering items to others through the list on the website (so people email or call you if they want to borrow something); by lending items to the main collection (they live there, but are yours to reclaim whenever you want them back); by donating items to the main collection (you're giving them to Transition Leicester forever! please don't use this as a chance to get rid of books that no one will want to read though...).

If you have things to either lend or donate to our main collection, then either bring them along to a Transition cafe event, or if you can't do that, contact us (info AT transitionleicester.org.uk) so we can put you in touch with someone nearby who can do that for you.

For all types of offers, we also need to keep the list on the website up to date - you could help with this by emailing us a list of what you're offering in the format shown below, grouped into categories if possible (feel free to invent new ones!). If you're really keen you could save someone else some work and directly edit this page yourself - for tips on how to do this take a look here.

How long can I borrow things for?

For items from the main collection, they're due back at the next Transition cafe (approximately one month later). If that's not feasible, then make sure you return them for the following month at worst, or drop us a line to arrange something (info AT transitionleicester.org.uk).

For items borrowed from other Transitioners that's something to be agreed between the lender and the borrower, but we'd suggest a standard loan of 3 weeks.

What do we have available?

Below is a list of what we have available. For each title, we've put afterwards whether it can be found in the main collection, or if not, the intials of the person you need to contact to arrange to borrow it. Unfortunately it'd be too much of an administrative headache to keep an up-to-date list on the website of which books are available, so if you're coming to the cafe to borrow a specific item, you'll just have to take a chance on it being available.

The list of contact details for people with items to lend are at the foot of this page, which you can reach by clicking here: Contact Details.

DVDs:
Peak Oil
Climate Change
Economics
Nature
Fiction

Books & Magazines:
Peak Oil
Climate Change
Food and Growing
"How to" guides: renewables, resource use, etc..
Economics
Permaculture and Systems Thinking
Fiction
Inner Transition
Magazines
Other

DVDs

Peak Oil
The End of Suburbia (Main)
The Power of Community (Main)
Crude Impact (Main)
Peak Oil: Imposed by Nature (Main)
A Convenient Truth (Main)
Climate Change
Economics
Money as Debt (Main, AJR)
Nature
Microcosmos (VHS video) (Main)

Books

Peak Oil
The Party's Over by Richard Heinberg (Main)
Powerdown by Richard Heinberg (Main)
The Oil Depletion Protocol by Richard Heinberg (Main)
Peak Everything by Richard Heinberg (Main)
Half Gone by Jeremy Leggett (Main)
The Last Oil Shock by David Strahan (Main)
Climate Change
Heat by George Monbiot (Main)
Six Degrees by Mark Lynas (Main)
Kyoto 2 by Oliver Tickell (Main)
Funny Weather by Kate Evans (Main)
High Tide by Mark Lynas (Main)
How to live a low carbon life by Chris Goodall (Main)
Food and Growing
Compost by Clare Foster (Main)
The Allotment Gardener by Ann Nicol (Main)
Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway (Ces)
How to make a forest garden by Patrick Whitefield (Ces)

"How to" guides: renewables, resource use, etc..
How to live off-grid by Nick Rosen (Main)
Off the Grid by Duncan Kerridge (AJR)
Do it yourself 12 Volt Solar Power by Michel Daniek (AJR)
The Green Building Bible 2nd edition (Main)
The Green Building Bible 3rd edition: vols 1 & 2 (Main)
Self Reliance by John Yeoman (Main)
Economics
The Growth Illusion by Richard Douthwaite (Main)
The Ecology of Money by Richard Douthwaite (Main)
Permaculture and Systems Thinking
Permaculture: Principles & Pathways beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren (Main)
The Ingenuity Gap by Thomas Homer-Dixon (Main)
The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock (Main)
Fiction
Inner Transition
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community by David Korten (AJR)
Find Your Power by Chris Johnstone (Main)
Magazines
Permaculture Magazine - Most issues from winter 2006 (Main)
Green Building Magazine (formerly Building for a Future) - Spring 2006 to Summer 2007 (Main)
Other

Contact Details

AJR - Andrew Reeves - reevesie AT gmail.com ; 07854 324982
Ces - Cesca Beamish - cesca @ cornerplotvegetables.co.uk ; 07963833611\\