Check out The Tolman Guide to Green Living in Portland: Simple, Sustainable, and Affordable Practices, a totally cool resource on how to live greener. I just browsed several of the sections and was totally excited about the options of improving the way I live and impact the world.

To be absolutely fair, I learned about this via the Tribune where poor Chris Lydgate is now contributing to the Sustainable Life section. Still, the article came across a little snarky. For example, there's a remark about worms in the primary author's bedroom. And then, at the end of the article he complains that "Some entries fail to list a Web site where readers actually could find the article being reviewed — a puzzling omission in an online guide."

[Putting on my librarian hat now.] As you might be aware, a lot of publications don't publish their articles online, or if they do, they offer them for a fee. Tolman et al, being academicians, probably used the electronic resources available at the Portland State University Library to research the guide. But that doesn't mean you can't read the articles, or learn more about those topics.

Here's what you do: go to your library website with your library card in hand. It could be Multnomah County libraries, Washington County libraries, or your college or university library. Look for a link labeled Research, Databases, Find Articles, or Periodicals, and once there, select Academic Search Premier (I mention ASP because it's a huge full-text database). Once you get in the database, you can search for article titles, authors, keywords, really just about anything you'd like.

But back to the Tolman Guide; if you prefer to read on paper rather than on screen, they do have a PDF available for download (under the Download link, natch), Multnomah County Library also has several copies that will be available soon, but you can put on hold now.