What will a vacuum cleaner look like five years into the future? Will it even exist on the market in its current form? Will machine learning (ML) turn today's vacuum cleaning robots into significantly more versatile and 'intelligent' house-keeping machines? No one knows for sure, but I bet folks at Phillips, iRobot, Dyson, and similar companies are busy figuring out what (or who) will clean our homes several years down the road. They don't have to guess blindly, as various design methodologies help them envision future developments.

My father is a refugee. He was forced out of his village and his lush fields in the war of 1974. My maternal grandfather was a refugee. He left his home, his thriving business, and his great fortune in the norther part of the island, since occupied by the Turkish army. They moved to Nicosia, beaten and poor.

Are books green? Are they sustainable? In March, this year, the UK’s public libraries had a Green Libraries conference. “Libraries are by their very nature the great green business model”, the post-conference website declares. Arden’s digital collection is sustainable in more ways than one. It has got me thinking about my growing collection of books and how sustainable my practices may be. What do books mean to me and how can I change my practices to remain sustainable?