Against the Grain Manuscript 8169 Collecting to the Core — Our Common Future Carla Heister Anne Doherty Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Collecting to the Core — Our Common Future by Carla Heister (Retired Forestry and Environmental Studies Librarian, Center for Science and Social Science Information, Yale University; Environmental Studies Subject Editor, Resources for College Libraries) <[email protected]> Column Editor: Anne Doherty (Resources for College Libraries Project Editor, CHOICE/ACRL) <[email protected]> Column Editor’s Note: The “Collecting resulting report, Our Common Future (also Our Common Future defined and advocated to the Core” column highlights monographic known as the Brundtland Report after the for then-nascent concepts of sustainability works that are essential to the academic li- chair of the Commission, Norwegian Prime and “sustainable development,” describing brary within a particular discipline, inspired Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland) was the latter as an approach that “meets the by the Resources for College Libraries bib- published through Oxford University Press needs of the present without compromising liography (online at http://www.rclweb.net). in 1987 and is recognized as one of the first the ability of future generations to meet their In each essay, subject specialists introduce works to define and promote sustainable own needs.”13 Prior to the publication of OCF and explain the classic titles and topics that development. The report is presented in there is little usage of the terms found in the continue to remain relevant to the undergrad- three parts — Common Concerns; Common academic literature; these terms now permeate uate curriculum and library collection. Dis- Challenges; Common Endeavours — and the environmental studies literature and can ciplinary trends may shift, but some classics outlines a pathway for supporting global be found in thousands of publications across never go out of style. — AD economic interests while sustaining shared multiple disciplines. Usage of the term “sus- environmental resources, insisting that “the tainable development” increased substantially time has come to take the decisions needed to following the publication of OCF. The Web of s an academic discipline, environmen- secure the resources to sustain this and coming Science database was used to track the growth tal studies is relatively young. Its rise generations.”9 of the term from 1981 to June 2018. Here largely coincides with the first Earth A Our Common Future (OCF) has had a “sustainable development” was searched as Day, which was observed on April 22, 1970, strong and lasting impact on environmental a bound term. Again, note that 2016-2018 is and originally promoted as an environmental only through June 2018 so by extrapolation the teach-in by United States Senator Gaylord thought, including the popularization and definitional standardization of the terms “sus- total citations for 2016-2020 should exceed the Nelson. However, a few academic programs, previous five years. events, and publications predated that inaugural tainability” and “sustainable development.” Earth Day, including the environmental studies It has greatly influenced the subdiscipline of programs at SUNY Syracuse and Middlebury environmental economics, along with environ- College; federal legislation on water pollution mental policy studies and the multidisciplinary and air pollution control passed in 1948 and field of sustainability science.10-12 The OCF 1955, respectively; and several influential report is the mortar that made the foundation environmental monographs, including Aldo of both sustainable development and sustain- Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Rachel ability strong and permanent. The enduring Carson’s Silent Spring.1-4 The post-World value of OCF can be quantified by looking at War II era ushered in an increasingly global citation counts in the literature over time, with perspective of Earth and humans’ relationship a breakdown of its citation history illustrating to it, influenced in part by the first views of the that its influence has not yet peaked. The data planet from space, a number of environmental referenced here is based on a Web of Science disasters (notably the 1969 Santa Barbara oil (WOS) Cited Reference Search using matches spill), and a growth in international govern- for over 900 citation variations for the Our mental cooperation through the establishment Common Future report. These results show of the United Nations (U.N.). Indeed, the a steady citation growth over the thirty years internationalization of environmental studies since the report’s publication. Note that 2016- can be chronicled partly through the formation 2018 is measured only through June 2018; by of both the United Nations Development extrapolation, the total Cited Reference Search Fig. 2 “Sustainable development” Programme in 1965 and the United Nations numbers should again exceed the previous five Environment Programme in 1972. While years within a three-year span. keyword search in WOS records both of the aforementioned works, A Sand Looking at other impact measures, within County Almanac and Silent Spring, have broad, the Scopus database, the term “sustainable multidisciplinary audiences (each is included development” is found in over 155,000 pub- in at least four RCL subject disciplines), this lications. “Sustainable development” became essay will focus on another influential and sem- a Library of Congress Subject Heading inal work for the field of environmental studies: in 1992 and as of June 2018, over 78,000 Our Common Future, the 1987 report of the non-fiction book records contain the subject U.N.’s World Commission on Environment heading. A keyword search in the Resources and Development (WCED).5 for College Libraries database results in Early international publications that exam- 146 titles with “sustainable development” ine the human-environment interplay include in the item record (only 15 of these from the the Declaration of the United Nations Con- Environmental Studies subject list) and 498 ference on the Human Environment, World titles using the search term “sustainability” Conservation Strategy, and North-South: A (only 38 from the Environmental Studies Program for Survival.6-8 In 1983, the U.N. subject list). The breadth of subject coverage General Assembly established the WCED in these search results belies the impact of with members from twenty-one different Our Common Future and its interdependent nations and tasked it with building on these influence, with monographs from agriculture, preceding efforts by devising strategies for business, education, engineering, health sci- preserving the environment while promoting Fig. 1 WOS Cited Reference Search ences, hospitality, politics, urban studies, and worldwide economic development. The for Our Common Future continued on page 38 36 Against the Grain / November 2018 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> Collecting to the Core Endnotes from page 36 1. Federal Water Pollution Control Act. P.L. 80-845 Chap. 758, 62 Stat. 1155), June 30, 1948. 2. Air Pollution Control Act. P.L. 84–159, Chap. 360, 69 Stat. 322), July 14, 1955. more, including: Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development; 3. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches from Here and There. New York: Oxford The Age of Sustainable Development; University Press, 1949.* NAFTA and Sustainable Development: 4. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.* The History, Experience, and Prospects 5. World Commission on Environment and Development. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford Univer- for Reform; Sustaining Abundance: En- sity Press, 1987.* Also found at the U.N. website as Report of the World Commission on Environment and vironmental Performance in Industrial Development: Our Common Future. 4 August 1987. Accessed May 2, 2018. http://www.un-documents. Democracies; and Towards Sustainable net/wced-ocf.htm Aviation.14-18 6. Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. From Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, June 1972. Accessed June 28, 2018. http:// Together, the above numbers illus- www.un-documents.net/unchedec.htm trate the broad reach of the concepts in- 7. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. World Conservation Strategy: troduced in Our Common Future and its Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 1980. assertion of an interlocked relationship 8. Brandt, Willy, and the Independent Commission on International Development Issues. North-South: between the global economy and ecol- A Program for Survival. Report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues. ogy. The report has Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983. been used in many 9. Our Common Future, Overview. environmental 10. Du Pisani, Jacobus A. “Sustainable Development – Historical Roots of the Concept.” Environmental studies curricu- Sciences 3, no. 2 (2006): 83-96. DOI: 10.1080/15693430600688831 la throughout the years as 11. National Research Council. Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability. Washington D.C.: The National Academies Press, 1999. a course text, with the most 12. Bennett,