feb09b.indd duce from nearby farms, steelheaddiner.com) fresh seafood, locally serves diner-inspired made jam and cheese, Pacific Northwest haute and many other tasty cuisine. treats from the Puget Many other down- Sound area. The farm- town restaurants offer ers’ market bounty also local, seasonal food. appears in several res- Just steps from the taurants near the mar- convention center is ket. The Pike Brewing Organic To Go (601 Company (1415 First Union St., Suite 224A, Ave., pikebrewing.com) organictogo.com, open features a pub menu Monday-Friday, 6:30 with local produce, fi sh, a.m.-4 p.m.), which has meats, and handcrafted an entirely organic and beer. One of Seattle’s partially local menu. most famous chefs, Tom Brasa (2107 3rd Ave., Produce at Pike Place Market. Photo credit: Justin D. Henry. Douglas, showcases the region’s seafood at Etta’s (2020 Western Ave., tomdouglas. com/ettas). Chez Shea (top fl oor, Corner Market building, 94 Pike St., chezshea.com) offers a French approach to market-fresh ingredients, and Steelhead Diner (95 Pine St., brasa.com) serves up a Mediterranean take on Northwest ingredients. In the Elliott Bay Bookstore, Elliott Bay Cafe (101 South Main St., elliottbaybook.com/about/cafe), features a local-focus menu recently revised by Ta- mara Murphy, the chef at Brasa. Union Square Six steps to greening your ACRL 14th National Conference experience The Green Conference Planning Commit­ tee for the ACRL National Conference has been working hard to build environmentally sustainable practices into this year’s confer­ ence in Seattle. Here are six ways to make this your greenest ACRL ever. 1. Take the pledge. Earlier this year the Green Committee surveyed ACRL members to find out what mattered most in greening our conference.We used the results to draft the Green Pledge. The pledge asks all conference par­ ticipants to make sustainability a priority throughout the conference. Participants who take the pledge agree to learn, inform, think, and act sustainably in the months leading up to and during the conference. Some suggested pledge activities are walking or using public transportation, accessing handouts through ACRL’s virtual conference space, recycling paper hand­ outs (or not using them in the fi rst place), consulting the ACRL interactive confer­ ence map for local and green restaurants and businesses, and using the conference program to learn which vendors provide sustainable services and practices.You can review the Green Pledge at tinyurl.com/ greenpledge. The committee urges everyone to accept the Green Pledge when registering for the conference.Your participation in the Green Pledge effort will be reflected by a green leaf on your registration badge. 2. Get green giveaways. All conference participants will receive green giveaways this year: a bag made of 51 percent recycled fabric and matching badge holder, and a corn plastic, BPA­free mug. You can make your giveaways even greener by recycling your badge holder be­ fore you leave the convention center—look for the drop box in the registration area. You’ll also have the opportunity to enter a drawing to win one free registration for the 2011 ACRL conference in Philadelphia. If you miss us there, you can enter the drawing at the Green Speaker program, as well. C&RL News February 2009 100 http:tinyurl.com http:conference.We http:brasa.com http:chezshea.com http:organictogo.com http:pikebrewing.com http:steelheaddiner.com Grill (621 Union St., unionsquaregrill.com) and the restaurant at the Seattle Art Museum, TASTE (1300 1st Ave., tastesam.com), both rely heavily on Puget Sound-area ingredients for their “New American” meals. Farestart (700 Virginia St., farestart.com, open Monday-Fri- day, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and Thursdays 6-8 p.m.), a nonprofit that provides culinary training for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, puts local, seasonal food on the lunch table during the work week, and brings in premier local chefs for often sold out “Guest Chef Nights” on Thursday evenings. Pacific Northwest cuisine elsewhere in Seattle Those willing to venture beyond the urban core will find many options for sampling Pa- cific Northwest cuisine in Seattle’s neighbor- hoods. Seattle’s public transportation system is not as robust as it will be soon, with a light rail system scheduled to debut some- time in 2009, but most of these restaurants 3. Hear a great green speaker. The com­ mittee is delighted to present a featured Green Speaker. Robin Chase is cofounder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest car­sharing company in the world. She is currently CEO of GoLoco, an innovative online ridesharing community. Chase has revolutionized the way people travel by combining transportation with social net­ working.Attend Chase’s session from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m Sunday, March 15. 4. Learn how to green your own confer­ ence. For those interested in learning more about what it takes to green a conference, the Green Committee will offer a panel ses­ sion from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 14.We’ll talk about drafting the green survey and the corresponding pledge, strate­ gies for greening a convention center, how to investigate green hotel practices, lessons learned along the way, and more. 5.Visit the Green Committee. Don’t for­ get to look for the Green Committee’s table in the convention center’s registration area. are a bus or taxi ride from downtown. Cabs can be hailed from most downtown hotels or requested by calling the local cab service (206-622-6500). Bus trips can be planned us- ing Metro’s online Trip Planner (tripplanner. metrokc.gov) and by using other online tools (transit.google.com, busmonster.com, mybus. org, or onebusaway.org). Popular neighborhood restaurants that seek out the bounty of nearby farms and artisans include Pair (5501 30th Ave. NE, pairseattle.com), Lark (926 12th Ave, lark- seattle.com), Stumbling Goat Bistro (6722 Greenwood Ave. N, stumblinggoatbistro. com), and Volunteer Park Café (1501 17th Ave. E, alwaysfreshgoodness.com). “Sicilian soul food” made with local ingredients is the specialty at La Medusa (4857 Rainier Ave. S, lamedusarestaurant.com) in the Columbia City neighborhood. Succulent steak frites and other European dishes can be found at Fremont’s 35th Street Bistro (709 N. 35th St., 35bistro.com). Also in Fremont is Tilth (1411 We’ll answer your questions about “behind­ the­scenes” greening efforts (recycled pipe and drape, anyone?) and help you enter to win some great prizes. We’ll also have a recycling station for your paper handouts. If you haven’t already done so, you can take the Green Pledge there, and we’ll give you a sticker for your badge. 6. Help spread the green. Because this will be ACRL’s first green conference, there’s a lot of excitement about com­ ing together to lessen our environmental impact in Seattle. There are already plans underway to carry this initiative forward into the future of ACRL conference plan­ ning.The Green Committee is looking to all of ACRL membership to help make our fi rst green conference a success!—Juliet Kerico is science and health sciences librarian at Southern Illinois University­Edwardsville, jkerico@siue.edu, and Karen Munro is head of the UO Portland Library and Learning Commons at the University of Oregon, kmunro@uoregon.edu February 2009 101 C&RL News mailto:kmunro@uoregon.edu mailto:jkerico@siue.edu http:35bistro.com http:lamedusarestaurant.com http:alwaysfreshgoodness.com http:seattle.com http:pairseattle.com http:onebusaway.org http:busmonster.com http:transit.google.com http:metrokc.gov http:farestart.com http:tastesam.com http:unionsquaregrill.com