Ana­heim Uni­ver­sity, a US-based insti­tu­tion which pio­neered online edu­ca­tion in the mid-nineties, has now com­mit­ted to being paper­less by 2010. This direc­tive has caused Ana­heim to push pub­lish­ers to pro­duce e-books, as well as adopt tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions such as the Sony book reader that allow the entire university’s cur­ricu­lum of text­books to be stored in a portable palm-sized elec­tronic reader.

The Ana­heim Uni­ver­sity Pres­i­dent Dr. William Hart­ley signed the Amer­i­can Col­lege & Uni­ver­sity Pres­i­dents Cli­mate Com­mit­ment in Feb­ru­ary 2009. The ACUPCC is a highly vis­i­ble effort organ­is­ing U.S. col­lege and uni­ver­sity pres­i­dents and chan­cel­lors to address global warm­ing by min­imis­ing global warm­ing emis­sions and pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion in an effort to achieve cli­mate neutrality.

Accord­ing to a Uni­ver­sity rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Anaheim’s stu­dents have sub­mit­ted assign­ments elec­tron­i­cally and accessed online library resources since 1998. This year the uni­ver­sity switched from paper to e-catalogues, and dig­i­tal pub­lish­ing has replaced the sub­mis­sion of mul­ti­ple copies of bound the­ses. The uni­ver­sity is expect­ing to con­vert all admin­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dures into dig­i­tal for­mat by 2010.