Thursday: Typical day as a Library Graduate Trainee

So it is nearly the end of the week and I had to get up early to ensure I got to work before 9am. The start of my 4 hours shift on the enquiry desk as a “gopher or resource retrieval”. Whenever someone enquirers about an items it is my responsibility to retrieve it from a variety of different library locations. Luckily, I didn’t have to walk 10 minutes (either way) to our Studies Office Library in the School of Horticulture or Mycology Library in the Jodrell (branches libraries). Furthermore, today was another relatively not busy day with a few enquires and retrievals in the morning.

I did however get some scanning requests. I finally got trained in using the USB operated flatbed scanner for small A4 sized books instead of the large table scanner. It was quite straightforward and quick I am pleased to say. Thinking back to my university student days it would have really come in hardy for our foreign speaking students as the first thing on the touch screen menu is a language select option of 15+ languages.

Preservation vs Conservation

Earth Day Wallpaper Source: Fun Gallery Images

So Earth Day has passed a while ago, but with a lot of people and businesses going green lately and having started to read Tony Juniper's book "What has Nature Ever Done For US? Does Money Really Grow On Trees?" I have really really been thinking about a lot about Mother Earth.  Mainly the growing debate of whether we as a society should preserve global resources or conserve them in a suistainable way?

Conservation is the way in which humans use natural resources for the benefit of economic utilization. Whereas, preservation suggests low human involvement of natural areas while still managing the development of natural processes and the number of species (plant or animal). 

I can understand a conservationist point-of-view whereby sustaining ecosystems can benefit many species from extinction in terms of predation or competition and help humans harvest an appropriate yield that can be managed over years.  However, I can see the preservationist point-of-view where naturally regulating areas such as Yellowstone Natural Park has allowed more biodiversity than managed glasslands and preserved the lands aesthetic and spiritual values.

However, in times where global warming (caused mainly by humans) and natural disasters are heavily effecting biodiversity and causing the endangerment and extinction of various species, is preservation really the answer? Don't we also need conservation to ensure that more species of plants and animals are created for the future?  On the other hand, in times when the global economic crisis has deterred governments from seeing the worth of convservation and has reducing aid to conservation organisations, are efforts made really enough?  Also, if we were to implement just conservation techniques, how do we prevent business monopolies and the rich from benefitting from something that should be for all humans and provide economic justice.

So, I suppose what I am asking is "Preservation better than conservation? Or can there be a balanace between the two?"