Laura L. Barnes has been an information professional with ISTC since 1991.
As ISTC’s Sustainability Information Curator, Laura provides information services to ISTC staff, which includes:
- developing new information resources;
- responding to inquiries from ISTC staff and external clients seeking scientific/technical and general environmental information;
- conducting orientations to University Library resources;
- proactively identifying funding opportunities, research papers, and other publications of interest to ISTC researchers;
- maintaining ISTC's collections in IDEALS, the University of Illinois institutional repository, and;
- authoring the Environmental News Bits blog.
She regularly speaks and publishes on sustainability in libraries and finding and using environmental information. View her work in her online portfolio.
As GLRPPR’s executive director, Laura developed and directed regional programs to benefit the organization’s members. She collaborated with the staff of the other centers in the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange’s national network to develop national pollution prevention information and networking tools, which include the Pollution Prevention 101 LibGuide and the Tools for TAPs LibGuide.
One of her most notable accomplishments was developing and leading a data analysis initiative to determine the impact of manufacturing on the economy and environment of the six states in U.S. EPA Region 5. The project's goal was to analyze U.S. EPA Toxics Release Inventory and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting Program data, as well as economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau, to provide insight to pollution prevention technical assistance programs (P2 TAPs) who wanted to better target their assistance efforts. Deliverables from the project included a report, a series of fact sheets, and a data visualization tool, as well as several webinars and workshops to teach P2 TAPs how to locate and use environmental data tools. Visit the GLRPPR archive to see other deliverables from the organization.