New year, new look!
Dartlist, Dartmouth’s equivalent of Craigslist, got a much needed facelift at the beginning of winter term 2017.
Since it’s inception in 2011, Dartlist has been a place for Dartmouth students and staff to buy and sell goods, find rides, and share information about campus events. Originally designed by the Dartmouth Sustainability Office, the website took off, quickly filling a need on campus, but then upkeep of the website platform quickly slipped to the "back burner" list of projects. This winterim 2017, Sustainability Fellow Molly Smith, looking for a new project and an excuse to learn CSS, made it her goal to revamp Dartlist and turn it back into a well-used and useful tool for Dartmouth students. After a few CSS tutorials and more than a few YouTube videos, Dartlist 2.0 was published. Some of the new features of Dartlist include a more sophisticated spam filter, new categories for posting and a clean, sleeker look.
The point of Dartlist is twofold. Firstly, it is meant to help our community, and particularly the regular stream of new comers making their way to the Upper Valley, find jobs, household items, and places to gather. With the student body constantly ebbing and flowing, students are always in temporary need of apartment goods, schoolbooks, etc. Instead of spending money on a brand new item which will only be used during the duration of their Dartmouth education, Dartmouth students are finding it much more convenient and cheap to purchase lightly used goods through Dartlist. Once a year, the Sustainability Office holds the Sustainable Moving Sale, which is essentially Dartlist “in real life”. But for faculty, staff, & graduate students, plus students who were off for a term or transferred in and missed the sale, Dartlist is a chance for them to pick up any items they might need.
Secondly, Dartlist was conceptualized as a way for Dartmouth students, faculty and staff to cut down on waste production. Members of the Sustainability Task Force at Dartmouth have been commissioned by President Hanlon to propose a set of specific goals aimed at reducing our footprint and improving the sustainability of our campus. One of the areas the Task Force is reviewing closely is waste reduction. When we think of waste, we often find ourselves in conversations about recycling, compost, and landfill. But there is a another category of waste that isn't indignificant on college campuses -- material goods or just "physical stuff". Dartlist aims to help the Dartmouth community achieve its waste reduction goals by providing a place for people to buy, sell and exchange goods instead of throwing them away and buying new ones. A great example of this is the mini fridge sale. The Sustainable Moving Sale sells over 200 fridges every year at the sale, and many of them end up finding their way back to the sale at the end of the school year. By recycling the fridges, the Sustainable Moving Sale and Dartlist (on which many fridges may be found) are helping Dartmouth cut back on non-recycleable waste produced and helping Dartmouth live up to its reputation as Big Green. While there is still a lot of work to be done on the Dartlist website, the vision for it is very clear; provide a simple, easy to maneuver website where students, staff, faculty and community members can buy, sell and exchange good safely for the betterment of their own pocketbooks as well as the environment. We in the Sustainability Office are eager to hear your suggestions or ideas for Dartlist! Feel free to comment in the space below with ways you think Dartlist can be improved upon or send us an email at Sustainable.Dartmouth@dartmouth.edu. Happy posting!