Library Hours Six Months Later, part II: Public libraries, Seattle and nearby

Dear Diary,

Yes, I'm back, with this discussion of nine libraries' past and current hours, their conditions for getting library cards, and their reputations with regard to the homeless.  So let's go!

The Seattle Public Library

According to a distance calculator, SPL's Green Lake branch is 0.43 miles from my house.  This is, of course, the library system two pages last autumn discussed in detail, so the paragraphs that follow are more of an update.

Before the pandemic, the Seattle Public Library had four schedules for its libraries, for which I had names in my libraries spreadsheet (not updated, but for 2019 through October 2021 at my Google Drive folder .ods or .csv).  Libraries open 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. four days per week, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and noon to 5 P.M. Sundays (61 hours total) were "big".  Libraries open 1 to 8 P.M. Mondays and Tuesdays, 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and noon to 5 P.M. Sundays (40 hours total) were "little".  And I called libraries with the latter schedule but also open 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Fridays (47 hours total) "medium".  Central Library was "big" except that it closed at 6 P.M. on Sundays (62 hours total).  Now:

1. Central Library is down four hours from its pre-pandemic schedule (that is, open 93.5% of that schedule), closing at 6 P.M. rather than 8 P.M. on Mondays and Tuesdays.  It also, of course, is only half-open every day except Wednesdays.
   
2. Ballard, Broadview and Greenwood branches, big, are open 100% of their pre-pandemic schedules.
   
3. Beacon Hill and Rainier Beach branches, big, are open their full schedules except that they close at 6 P.M. Mondays.  They're down two hours, or open 96.7% of previous hours.
   
4. Capitol Hill, Douglass-Truth, Northeast, Southwest, and West Seattle branches, big, are open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays and Tuesdays, noon to 8 P.M. Wednesdays and Thursdays.  They're down eight hours, or open 86.9%.
5. The Columbia branch, big, is open its full schedule except that it opens at noon on Mondays, so it's down two hours, or open 96.7%.
   
6. The Lake City branch, big, is open noon to 8 P.M. Mondays and Tuesdays, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Wednesdays and Thursdays.  It's down eight hours, or open 86.9%.
7. The Northgate branch, big, is open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Tuesdays, noon to 8 P.M. Wednesdays and Thursdays, and closed Mondays.  It's down sixteen hours, the most of any branch, because it's the only big branch still closed any (non-holiday) day of the week; it's still open 73.8% of its pre-pandemic schedule.
8. High Point, International District/Chinatown, and South Park branches, medium, are open 100% of their pre-pandemic schedules.
9. The University branch, medium, is still closed Fridays, as if it were a little branch, down seven hours, or open 85.1% of its pre-pandemic schedule.  This is consistent with the pattern in October, but I'm beginning to wonder whether, five years from now, it'll still be keeping the little schedule.  Six little libraries are open 100% of their pre-pandemic schedules, so are keeping the same schedule as University:  Delridge, Fremont, Green Lake, Madrona-Sally Goldmark, Montlake and Wallingford branches.
10. The Magnolia branch, little, is closed Saturdays, so is down seven hours, or open 82.5%.
11. The NewHolly branch, little, is closed Saturdays and Sundays, so is down twelve hours, or open 70% of its pre-pandemic schedule, the lowest percentage in the system.  This, the last branch to re-open, is the only branch still closed three consecutive days (Friday through Sunday).
12. The Queen Anne branch, little, is closed Sundays, so is down five hours, or open 87.5%.

Last October, once NewHolly finally opened back up, SPL was keeping fourteen schedules.  At this pace it'll be back down to five around January 2024.

I haven't actually been visiting many SPL branches recently, so don't know the status of all the restrooms and water fountains, but the only examples of each known to me to be inaccessible to the public are the ones on the fourth and seventh floors of Central Library, and even those are now open on Wednesdays.

I already alluded above to SPL's list of reciprocal borrowing agreements, and for that matter to its conditions for getting library cards (same link).  SPL also offers cards (same link again) to non-residents (of its service and reciprocal areas) for a recurring fee; it also offers shorter-term paid cards.

One of the articles I looked at while working on the history of the SPL-KCLS reciprocal borrowing agreement was about how mean SPL is to the homeless, specifically contrasting it with KCLS.  However, that article was from late 2016.  (A few months later, Nathalie Graham, before her career at The Stranger, wrote a better article for the South Seattle Emerald.)  I actually saw, sometime between 2012 and 2014, the then-manager of the Capitol Hill branch push someone (a young white man, and I don't remember whether the pushing was strictly verbal or also physical) out of that branch because he was carrying something too large for the box referred to in the first article.  But while that policy is still on the books, it was never applied to me, even though, while I was homeless, I often violated it, specifically on the date I saw someone else excluded for it, and very often during the later years when I had a cart.  Also, I frequently violated the hygiene rule, but no library staffer has ever mentioned it to me.  I have been woken on occasion when I've fallen asleep at an SPL library (I remember once during a snow week at the Northeast branch, but assume there were more), but not excluded for it.  I have no idea how much of this is due to my race, age, sex, or whatever.  In any event, more recent coverage is more sympathetic to the librarians, though not always (item 2).  A page I still hope to write in you, dear Diary, sometime in the next few months depends heavily on printed resources for homeless people; I got most of them from elsewhere, but then found a table with all of them on the 5th floor of Seattle Central Library.  Finally, SPL places no specific limits on borrowing by homeless patrons; it provides a detailed list of "proofs of address", explicitly addressed to homeless people:  "If you’re currently experiencing homelessness, Library staff can assist you with address verification options."  We'll see below that this is actually a somewhat unusual policy.

King County Library System

KCLS's Shoreline branch is 5.56 miles from my house.

King County Library System, although much younger than SPL, is now western Washington's premier library system by several measures, including how busy it is, how many people it serves, how many physical materials it has, and so on.  It not unreasonably likes to brag about this, because on most of those measures, it compares to, and sometimes beats, places like the Queens Public Library; in some years, it's listed as tops in the nation.  This rapid rise is in turn probably why the SPL-KCLS reciprocal borrowing agreement has not only to be periodically re-negotiated, but contentiously so.  It's probably still fair to say that SPL still outshines KCLS on obscure books, in particular, especially at Central Library and more especially in such places as that library's Seattle Room or Douglass-Truth's Africana collection; but KCLS has some advantages in that field as well, especially at its Bellevue centre.  (And as to other sorts of obscurities?  KCLS's K-drama collection puts SPL to shame.  All of SPL, KCLS and PCLS are often found as the only northwestern libraries owning a particular K-drama, but KCLS most often.)  My point is that thinking of KCLS as just a bunch of suburban libraries is a mistake.  It's an exceptional bunch of libraries in suburbs some of which are now major cities in their own right.  (Bellevue, Kent, Renton and Federal Way all already exceed 100,000 in population, and Kirkland is nearer that mark than Bellingham is.)  And also in non-suburbs.  KCLS has only one branch, with deficient hours, in the mountainous eastern half of the county, but also has three branches in unincorporated communities on Seattle's borders, urban by any reasonable definition.  (A fourth is in an area recently annexed by Burien.)

KCLS's pre-pandemic hours aren't documented at the Internet Archive for any time later than April 2016, but Sarah Thomas, their PR person, helpfully e-mailed me a 2019 hours handout which I've uploaded to my Google Drive account.  The reason its hours aren't saved for more recent years is that KCLS, like SPL, uses the Bibliocommons catalogue platform, and Bibliocommons offers a way to present library hours which KCLS has adopted, which doesn't even present the hours on one page; instead one has to go branch by branch, which is more than the Archive usually bothers with.  This setup is especially unfortunate in the case of KCLS, which has (of course) more branches than any other system in Washington, fifty.  Admittedly, that includes two things I have doubts about, but forty-eight real branches is still by far the most in Washington.

Unsurprisingly, then, KCLS had many pre-pandemic schedules, no fewer than thirteen.  This, however, is a little deceptive.  Only four of those schedules were used by more than one library; it's just that KCLS had nine locations with unique schedules.  And some of those were only unique in their Sunday hours.  Mondays through Saturdays, 41 or probably 42 libraries opened at 10 A.M., and closed at 9 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays, and 5 P.M. Saturdays.  The common schedules for Sundays were closed (16 branches), 1 to 5 P.M. (17), 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. (5), and 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. (2).  It's a good bet that the Kent Panther Lake branch, which opened after the 2019 document I have, followed one of those schedules.  The rest?  Bellevue opened at 9 A.M. Mondays through Thursdays, stayed open until 6 P.M. on Saturdays, and was open 11-7 on Sundays.  Black Diamond was open regular hours Mondays through Thursdays and Saturdays, closed Fridays and Sundays.  Two locations in malls were open 10 A.M. to 9 P.M. six days per week, but the one in Southcenter had longer Sunday hours than the one in Crossroads.   Greenbridge (in White Center) was open regular hours Mondays through Thursdays, closed Fridays and Sundays, and only open from noon to 4 P.M. on Saturdays.  Redmond Ridge (in an unincorporated but built-up area east of Redmond), which is actually just a place to pick up holds and return things, not a real branch, was open from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. every day.  The Service Center (in Issaquah) kept business hours, and I'm not sure to what extent it's really a branch either.  The Skykomish branch was open 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Tuesdays and Saturdays and 1 to 7 P.M. Thursdays.  The main Tukwila branch was open regular hours Mondays through Saturdays, and 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Sundays.

Now KCLS has only eight schedules.  Redmond Ridge continues to be open all day and evening.  Renton is closed for repairs, but is due to re-open this month, at which point KCLS will probably go down to seven schedules.  The Service Center has slightly shorter business hours.  Everyone else is following much of this schedule:  10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 1 to 8 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays; and 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Sundays.  However, every branch on this schedule is actually closed either one or two days of the week, except Skykomish which is still closed four days:

• Closed Sundays:  Algona-Pacific (71.2% of pre-pandemic schedule), Bellevue (58.3%), Bothell (62.7%), Covington (66.7%), Crossroads mall (in Bellevue; 57.5%), Enumclaw (66.7%), Federal Way (62.7%), Issaquah (66.7%), Kent (66.7%), Lake Forest Park (71.2%), Newcastle (71.2%), North Bend (66.7%), Redmond (62.7%), Southcenter mall (in Tukwila; 56.8%), Tukwila (63.6%), Woodinville (66.7%), Woodmont (in Des Moines; 71.2%)
• Closed Saturdays:  Auburn (66.7%), Burien (62.7%), Des Moines (66.7%), Fairwood (64.6%), Federal Way 320th (71.2%), Kirkland (66.7%), Mercer Island (66.7%), Renton Highlands (66.7%), Sammamish (66.7%), Shoreline (62.7%), White Center (71.2%)
  
• Closed Sundays and Mondays:  Boulevard Park (in Burien; 59.3%), Carnation (59.3%), Fall City (59.3%), Greenbridge (72.9%), Kingsgate (in Kirkland; 55.6%), Maple Valley (55.6%), Muckleshoot [Reservation] (59.3%), Richmond Beach (in Shoreline; 59.3%), Valley View (actually SeaTac; 59.3%), Vashon (53.8%)
  
• Closed Fridays and Saturdays:  Black Diamond (68.6%), Duvall (59.3%), Kenmore (59.3%), Kent Panther Lake (?%), Lake Hills (in Bellevue; 55.6%), Newport Way (in Bellevue; 55.6%), Skyway (59.3%), Snoqualmie (59.3%)
  
• Closed Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays:  Skykomish (105%)
  

Pre-pandemic Sunday hours were somewhat predictive of present schedules - the majority of libraries closed Sundays before are now closed two days, the majority of those open Sundays before are now closed one day - but still, quite a few libraries now have Sunday hours that didn't before, or more Sunday hours than they had before.

I also alluded above to KCLS's list of reciprocal borrowing agreements.  KCLS does not offer cards to non-residents for a fee, and is rather sanctimonious about that:  "Selling library cards is counter to our mission of providing free and open access to library services for all, regardless of one's ability to pay."  (From here.)

The 2016 articles mentioned above presented a situation in which SPL wrote something like a hundred times as many exclusions of homeless patrons as KCLS (which, remember, is a busier system with more branches) did.  One specific thing those articles mentioned about KCLS:  that system got rid of its rule against sleeping in its libraries.  (Indeed, that isn't in their Patron Code of Conduct, nor is there a box rule, though there is still a hygiene rule.)  Anyway, those articles aren't what come up first in my searches for KCLS and homeless.  Instead, it's lots and lots of the services stuff I'm not interested in talking about.  But I couldn't help, as I read this 2013 article about KCLS's Redmond branch, contrasting it with what I encountered in autumn 2020 when I spent a lot of time around SPL's Northeast branch, mostly writing pages in you, dear Diary.

KCLS has, however, another rule it's sanctimonious about.  I first visited the Bellevue library while living in an SRO between 2006 and 2012; I also went there while homeless, certainly in 2014, but probably not after 2017.  This rule held that people not in "permanent" housing (owned or leased) could only get cards good for two checkouts.  This policy is very little documented at their website this year.  We're told that people with "limited checkout" aren't among those "Who may use ILL?", and on page 2 of KCLS's 2019 annual report (PDF) we read that the limit was raised from two checkouts to five.  Days before I found these links, I'd asked Sarah Thomas (KCLS's PR person) what had become of that policy; when she got back to me, she told me it was the worst case - a policy still in effect that KCLS doesn't document online.  But she also gave me KCLS's rationale for it, which isn't a simple "We don't trust homeless people", oh no, it's sanctimonious.  Because KCLS is supported by property taxes, it's supported by property owners and those who rent from them.  Homeless people don't do that, so even limited checkout for them is a wonderful gift bestowed by magnanimous KCLS.  Very well, but hotel residents, notably those in private, for-profit SROs, do pay property tax.  My rent was higher in absolute dollars (not inflation-adjusted ones) in 2012 than it is now, and I'd bet most of the difference was property tax.  (After all, I then lived on Capitol Hill; now I'm in East Green Lake.)  Also, when, last year, I went to get a new KCLS card (my cards have always expired after six months of inactivity, whether as a general rule, because I'm from Seattle, or because I was on limited checkout, I don't know)...  ANYWAY, last year I had to get a new card, and offered to show my lease, but the librarian was satisfied with my ballot envelope.  But I got ballot envelopes regularly while I was homeless, too.  So I think in practice, this poorly documented rule really is about limiting the impact on KCLS of rabble, the attractiveness of KCLS to rabble, and not about the theory KCLS spins about it.  KCLS is far from unique in having such a rule; I just wish they'd admit what it really is.

Sno-Isle Libraries

SIL's Mountlake Terrace branch is 7.79 miles from my house.

Library systems farther from Seattle tend to have more diverse schedules for their branches, not less so.  So I'm not going into as much detail for these systems, but have uploaded the spreadsheet on which I compiled all this to my Google Drive folder.

Case in point:  In 2019, the Sno-Isle Libraries had thirteen schedules for their twenty-three branches.  (They also had separate schedules for their "Library on Wheels" program, and their administrative/service center.)  SIL didn't have a single Web page listing locations and hours even before it used Bibliocommons; Susan Hempstead, whose duties include PR, e-mailed me another handout that I've uploaded to Google Drive, PDF.  Today, they also have thirteen schedules for those branches.  (Library on Wheels also has a new schedule; I haven't been able to find out about the service center.)

Anyway, it's possible to simplify the chaos somewhat.  Eight branches were closed Sundays.  Three were also closed Mondays - Brier, Clinton, and Lakewood/Smokey Point (in Arlington).  These were open 40 hours.  The other five - Camano Island, Darrington, Langley, Mariner and Sultan - were open 48 hours.  In other words, at all eight libraries, all days the libraries were open, they were open eight hours, usually 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. but with two 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. days per week.  Of the other fifteen, seven - Marysville, Mill Creek, Monroe, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo, Oak Harbor and Snohomish, all in a row in the alphabetical order of the handout, too - had this schedule:  9 A.M. to 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, 1 to 5 P.M. Sundays (total 64 hours).  Arlington, Coupeville, Freeland, Granite Falls, Lake Stevens and Stanwood had between 56 and 62 open hours with variations on that schedule; Edmonds had 65, and Lynnwood had 72.

Today?  All branches are open all the same days as in 2019.  All eight branches with 40 or 48 hours are back to their previous number of hours, but only Brier, Langley and Mariner still have days open 11 A.M. to 7 P.M.  The libraries open seven days have between 52 and 56 hours.  Eleven of them have four schedules, basically 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Saturdays, 1 to 5 P.M. Sundays, with these variations:  1) None (Coupeville and Freeland); 2) 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. Mondays and Tuesdays (Edmonds, Lynnwood, Marysville and Mill Creek); 3) 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. Mondays and Tuesdays (Granite Falls, Monroe and Mountlake Terrace); 4) 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. Wednesdays and Thursdays (Mukilteo and Snohomish).  Arlington, Lake Stevens, Oak Harbor and Stanwood have other variations.

Sno-Isle Libraries uses the phrase "reciprocal borrowing" nowhere at its website.  That's at least partly because it's one of the systems that unilaterally offer cards:  "You are eligible for a Sno-Isle Libraries card if any of the following statements apply to you:

• Residents of the Sno-Isle Libraries District and their dependents. The district's service area is unincorporated Snohomish or Island counties, or a city or town that contracts with or is annexed to Sno-Isle Libraries.
• Residents of other jurisdictions within Washington State that provide equitable tax support for public library service.
• Non-resident payers of property taxes of the Sno-Isle Libraries District and their dependents."
  

(From here.)  I'm unclear on whether places like Seattle, whose library funding is more complicated than most county library districts', qualify as providing "equitable tax support".  However, SPL, as well as KCLS, and, below, Kitsap Regional Library, the Everett Public Library, Timberland Regional Library, Pierce County Library System and the Puyallup Public Library, and still more in other parts of this page, all assert that they have reciprocal borrowing agreements with SIL.  So my bet is that SIL just didn't feel like listing them all, or maybe doesn't want the costs that would result if people whose primary library was SIL knew they could go get reciprocal cards elsewhere.

SIL doesn't say whether it offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee, but I'd bet it doesn't.

If SIL has a crippleware card for the homeless, it doesn't say so.  It does specifically offer to mail cards to people who have no other acceptable proof of address, successful delivery of the card being presumptive proof.  SIL has a behaviour policy list that includes a hygiene rule and a rule against sleeping, but not a box rule (i.e., a rule against carrying lots of stuff, more than can fit inside a specific box).  That list goes into considerable detail about enforcement, including exclusion.  In 2017, SIL sponsored forums at which both service providers and actual homeless people spoke (some of the speakers belonging to both groups).  That's pretty close to the kinds of services I'm not interested in talking about, but a UW student (PDF) has documented work in 2021 compiling by-branch lists of actual service providers for SIL, which apparently hadn't already done that work.  Most of my searches for library systems' relationships with homeless people have turned up complaints at various review sites about how homeless people make libraries into cesspools no respectable person can stand to visit; since these complaints are just as ferocious in Kitsap County as in Seattle, I figure they don't correlate with reality enough to bother with.  Anyway, while I did find such complaints about SIL, I also, to my astonishment, found complaints at those review sites that SIL libraries should be kinder to the homeless.  Just can't win with some folks.

Kitsap Regional Library

KRL's Bainbridge Island branch is 9.41 miles from my house.

The Kitsap Regional Library has nine branches in Kitsap County.  The Internet Archive didn't keep a copy of their hours and locations page for the whole of 2019, so I was using a November 29, 2018 copy until I found out that in the copy of April 10, 2020, the pre-shutdown hours were still shown.  In November 2018, KRL had a three-tiered system like Seattle's.  The libraries had seven actual schedules, but three, Downtown Bremerton, Little Boston i.e. S'klallam Reservation, and Manchester, were open a total of 38 hours; Kingston was open a total of 47 hours; and Bainbridge Island, Port Orchard, Poulsbo, Silverdale and Sylvan Way (also in Bremerton) were open 53 hours total.  (The last three in that list had the same exact schedule.)  One oddity was that all libraries were closed until 1 P.M. on Thursdays.  In April 2020, Downtown Bremerton and Manchester had gained four hours to 42; Little Boston had gained one to 39; and Bainbridge Island had gained one to 54.

KRL is currently keeping the same sort of schedule as SPL kept in mid-2021:  All libraries are open 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. weekdays, with varying Saturday hours, and all are closed Sundays.  This has resulted in much more equal hours - the range is now 38 to 42 open hours.  (So as in Seattle now, but much more consistently, the libraries that had the shortest schedules are affected least, those that had the longest schedules most.)

I find essentially nothing not government-written on searching for ' "Kitsap Regional Library" "homeless" '; yes, KRL too offers services to the homeless.  KRL says nothing to clarify the "proof of address" it wants; I wrote to their media contact asking how this works for homeless borrowers, but got an auto-reply saying she's out of the office until April 14.  [Update April 14:  KRL accepts General Delivery as an address, so homeless people are on the same terms as anyone else.]

KRL uses the looser formulation of library card qualification mentioned above, which it actually merges with the formula SPL and KCLS use.  Can you spot the difference, dear Diary?  "You are eligible for a library card if you live or work in Kitsap County or own property. Additionally, residents of Washington state living in areas that support public libraries may also apply."  (Quote from here.)  The key words there are "living in areas that support public libraries".  The cited page lists a reasonable set of libraries with which KRL has reciprocal agreements anyway.  KRL doesn't say whether it offers library cards to other places' residents for a fee.  [Update April 14:  No.]

The Everett Public Library

EPL's Evergreen branch is 16.88 miles from my house.

The Everett Public Library is saved from being a one-building organisation by having one other building, that Evergreen branch in southern Everett.  Correspondingly, though SPL and KCLS both have reciprocal agreements with it, neither KRL nor PCLS has bothered.  But as in Tacoma and Puyallup coming up, Everett's library has bounced back from closure faster than many bigger agencies.  Before the pandemic (look at the bottom of the page), EPL was open 57 hours at both locations per week:  opening at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, closing at 6 P.M. Mondays and Fridays, 5 P.M. Saturdays, and 8 P.M. the other days, and open 1-5 P.M. Sundays.  Now, it's open 56 hours per week at the main library, closing at 6 P.M. both Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 52 hours at Evergreen, with the same change but also closed Sundays.

The phrase "reciprocal borrowing" isn't at EPL's website; instead it says "If you...

• Live in Snohomish, Island, or King County (except Woodway, Hunts Point, or Yarrow Point)
• Work in Everett city limits
• Own property or a business in Everett city limits

...then you are eligible for an Everett Public Library Card!"  I guess Woodway is the only part of Snohomish County too poor to afford a library.  Also, this phrasing strongly suggests that SPL, KCLS and SIL are all of EPL's reciprocal borrowing agreements.  EPL doesn't say whether it offers cards to residents of other places for a fee.

About the same time as Nathalie Graham was writing about SPL and the homeless, Chris Winters at the Everett Herald was writing about EPL's own issues with homeless people, from a decidedly more housed-focused perspective.  I'm not finding more recent reporting.  I saw nothing suggesting that EPL restricts homeless people's borrowing, but as we know from KCLS, that's no guarantee.

The Tacoma Public Library

TPL's Kobetich branch is 26.90 miles from my house.

Last October already I called the Tacoma Public Library out as the first in the area to return to its full hours.  Unfortunately, the Internet Archive didn't see fit to preserve TPL's hours page until mid-2020, so the only proof of this is in the physical signs outside each branch I've walked past, such as this one, photographed last July at, I think, the Swasey branch:

I noted in October that these are really short hours - 40 per week - but TPL is keeping them, and has been since sometime after July 14 (when they were close, but not all the way there).  One neat thing TPL has done is reserve the first hour of each day at each location for "vulnerable populations" since they started re-opening; they now continue to require masks during that hour.  On the downside, they've had physical problems with several branches over the past year, including ongoing construction at the Main Library (which has specifically blocked its restrooms and water fountains) but also a recent closure at the Mottet branch and difficulties at the Eastside Community Center kiosk (which, like PCLS's similar spot on Anderson Island, keeps very limited hours).  Considering that they only have nine locations, this is a pretty astonishing number of closures.

TPL has just four reciprocal borrowing agreements - SPL, KCLS, PCLS and Puyallup Public Library.  And the SPL agreement is pretty new.  TPL offers library cards to residents of other places for a recurring fee.

TPL appears to have a category of library card which would, I suspect, apply to most homeless people, though I don't know whether it's automatically given to homeless applicants:  the "unverified" card, "For users who have expired ID, cannot provide proof of address or are living in temporary or transitional housing".  It expires after six months and limits physical borrowing to three items.  I think this might have applied to me also when I lived in an SRO, since SROs are usually classified as "hotels" (and mine was so named, the Boylston Hotel).  I find nothing else noteworthy about TPL and the homeless - they instituted their own box rule for personal property in 2002, though still later than SPL, but I have no personal experience concerning its enforcement, and since TPL doesn't have its policies online, don't even know for sure that it's still in effect.  When I first found, at the University Place branch of PCLS, PCLS's idiotic water fountain shutoff devices, the librarian whom I asked about them claimed TPL had them too, but TPL's PR person, Mariesa Bus, said not so, and I didn't find it so in July 2021.  PCLS didn't get rid of the stupid doohickeys until that September.

Timberland Regional Library

TRL's North Mason branch in Belfair is 28.60 miles from my house.

The Timberland Regional Library, on November 20, 2019, listed 27 full branches, two "partnerships" with one tribal and one school library, each involving TRL books also being in that library, as well as TRL holds and returns being possible there, five kiosks for holds and returns, and four book return bins.  It now reports 29 full branches, one partnership, two kiosks, and three book return bins.  The two new full branches have the same names as the missing book return bin and one of the missing kiosks, but aren't in the same places.

TRL doesn't list all its hours in one place on a regular basis, though some press releases have done so.  However, to my great good fortune, something inspired the Internet Archive to capture all the locations' pages on March 2, 2020.  So I can tell you, dear Diary, that TRL's 27 full branches as of March 2, 2020 had 22 schedules.  All were closed Sundays.  Most were closed Mondays.  Total hours ranged from 24 26 at Amanda Park (Quinault Reservation) and Oakville [correction April 14] to 49 at Aberdeen, Centralia, Shelton, Lacey, Olympia, and Tumwater - that is, one library each in Grays Harbor, Lewis and Mason counties, and three in Thurston.  (These were the only libraries open Mondays.)  Pacific County's highest-hours library on that date was actually the TRL partner library, the Shoalwater Bay Tribal Community Library, open 40 hours per week (and not on Mondays).

Now?  First, I should explain some backstory.  In 2009 TRL asked voters for permission to raise its property taxes more than state law allows without voter approval, a "levy lid lift".  Such votes require a supermajority, which TRL didn't get.  The crippled hours TRL had for the ensuing decade are partly because much of its service area really is rural, as most of the service areas of the libraries listed above are not, and partly because it didn't get that money.  But now, somehow, TRL has found enough pocket change in the sofas to expand hours massively.  (Lots of context and some links in a Reddit discussion, including a long contribution from someone claiming to represent TRL, from November 2021.)  The Salkum branch has gone from 41 hours to 35.  Four other branches have gone down one hour each.  Five Six branches have the same number of hours as in March 2020 [correction April 14].  And the other seventeen have all seen their total hours increase.  The minimum is now 28 hours (Amanda Park and Oakville); the maximum, 54 (Aberdeen, Lacey and Tumwater; Olympia is scheduled to get there next month).  And yes, TRL has also opened two new branches, of which West Olympia, the one on the Capitol Mall, is scheduled to get Sunday hours next month, which will put it at 53 hours per week.  (Centralia is at 50 hours; Shelton was too, before it closed for repairs.)  I don't know whether TRL's management realises that by doing all this without extra money, they've probably doomed their next levy lid lift request too.

TRL cards are available to residents, property owners, employees and students in their service area, and reciprocally to nine library systems and four individual libraries.  TRL does offer cards to non-residents for recurring fees, but since it offers free cards to "Residents of other areas outside of the TRL Service area within Washington that have tax-supported public library service", the only people intended to pay are the paupers from places like Hunts Point, and people who live outside Washington, notably in Oregon near Pacific County.

TRL has a basic card for people who can't verify addresses; its limit is borrowing ten items, and its holders can do inter-library loan.  I suppose if libraries can't just give a regular card to a homeless person, that's about the best they can do, and puts KCLS's magnanimity into the shade.  Most of what turned up in my searches about TRL and the homeless was more or less false positives - an article about TRL that happened to use the word "homeless", or an article about homelessness that happened to mention TRL, interesting in their own rights but not worth mentioning here.  So although at least Thurston and Greys Harbor counties evidently have homeless populations, if not all five, I don't get the impression that TRL has seen reason to dive into service provision yet.

Pierce County Library System

PCLS's Milton/Edgewood branch is 29.66 miles from my house.

The Pierce County Library System has twenty branches, and before the pandemic, those branches kept five schedules, but the setup was actually simpler than SPL's.  The Administrative Center (which has closed stacks, but before the pandemic allowed patrons to page items from a front desk), the four-hour-per-week room in the Anderson Island Community Center, and a branch in Tillicum (officially part of Lakewood) all kept their own (relatively brief) schedules.  Otherwise, nine branches (Bonney Lake, Gig Harbor, Graham, Lakewood, Parkland/Spanaway, South Hill, Summit, Sumner and University Place) opened at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, closing at 9 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays, and 5 P.M. Saturdays, and were open 1 to 5 P.M. Sundays (63 hours total).  And the other eight (Buckley, DuPont, Eatonville, Fife, Key Center, Milton/Edgewood, Orting and Steilacoom) opened at 11 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, closing at 8 P.M. Mondays through Wednesdays, 6 P.M. Thursdays and Fridays, and 5 P.M. Saturdays; they had no Sunday hours (47 hours total).

Now, Anderson Island is down to three hours per week, the Administrative Center is closed to the public, and the hours which were already short at Tillicum are even shorter.  The branches that used to have the longer schedules are divided into two:  Gig Harbor, Lakewood, Parkland/Spanaway, South Hill, and University Place are all open 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. instead of 9 Mondays through Thursdays, but their schedules are otherwise unchanged (down eight hours, or open 87.3%).  Bonney Lake, Graham, Summit and Sumner are open 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Mondays and Saturdays, to 6 P.M. Tuesdays through Fridays (down thirteen hours, or open 79.4%).  Meanwhile, the branches that had the shorter schedules now each have different schedules, ranging from 42 to 47 hours total.  (47 is DuPont only; all the others have fewer hours, but at worst are open 89.4% of their pre-pandemic schedules, so as at KRL, but not SPL, all the shorter-hours libraries have re-opened faster than all the longer-hour ones).  Most days, these branches now open at 10 A.M. rather than 11, and close correspondingly earlier.

PCLS's reciprocal borrowing agreements are extensive, nine systems and one individual library (Puyallup).  PCLS doesn't say whether it offers people outside those agreements library cards for a fee, but based on what it does say, I think that's probably unlikely.

I got my first PCLS card at the South Hill branch while I was homeless, and have never been aware of borrowing restrictions, nor can I find any evidence of them online.  (The opposite, in fact.  Now, like many other libraries, they've gotten rid of overdue fines.  But the K-dramas I borrowed on my first visit to South Hill, it took me two years to come up with money, not just for bus fare but also for overdue fines, and time, all at the same time, to return.  But it turned out there was a cap on fines even then, so I needn't have saved nearly so much, therefore needn't have waited nearly so long.  Seemed to me they'd bent over backwards to accommodate me despite my bad behaviour.)  That Tillicum branch with the short hours has a garden out back to supply produce to needy people.  I'm finding damn-all that's negative about interactions between PCLS and the homeless - except for my own observation that they chose to shut off all their water fountains, like almost nobody else (the Northgate Target did the same), during re-opening - and were the only place I observed spending money to do so (Target's shut-off was a sign).   Whoever made that decision obviously made it without consulting any homeless people (or bike messengers, or...), but beyond that, there's at least one homeless service provider on the PCLS board of trustees, and they seem to do a lot of good in general.

The Puyallup Public Library

Before the pandemic, the Puyallup Public Library, which is 33.59 miles from my house, was open 51 hours per week.  It's now open 53, or 103.9%.  Looked at in more detail, though, the changes show some things in common with the libraries still at reduced hours.  It was open 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; now it's open until 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays.  Its hours those days are actually a wash, the later hours Thursdays paid for partly by opening later on Wednesdays; the increase comes from opening at 9 A.M. rather than 10 A.M. on Fridays and Saturdays.  (PPL was and remains closed Sundays.)

PPL doesn't do inter-library loan, which makes its reciprocal borrowing agreements all the more important for Puyallup residents.  PPL does, however, offer cards itself to "Residents of jurisdictions within Washington State that provide equitable tax support for public library service.", with the proviso that such people must show their home library cards as well as their identification and proof of address.  That said, PPL also offers cards for a recurring fee, and explicitly says residents of places like Hunts Point (there are several such pockets of poverty in Pierce County) can't get PPL cards any other way.

There are homeless people in Puyallup (Facebook link), but Puyallup doesn't go its own way on homelessness as it does on libraries, so there doesn't seem to be a one-stop city government page, and PPL doesn't seem to work for the homeless the way most of the bigger systems I've already discussed do.  PPL issues only "temporary", three-month, cards, limited to borrowing just one item, under certain circumstances.  "Temporary visitors (temporary workers, homeless) can be issued a temporary card that will expire in three months.  The card can be renewed every three months if the patron still has no permanent address.  Only one time [sic; item] can be checked out at a time."  It only says "can", so a homeless person applying for a PPL card actually faces three possibilities; a temporary card is the default, but it's also possible that he might get no card, or conceivably might get a regular card (if he could convince the librarian that something was a proof of address).  I wonder whether he'd get a regular card if he paid for it.

All for now, dear Diary.  Six more libraries - three individual libraries, three small systems - in the next part, and a list of western Washington libraries where I can't get a card at its end.  Probably tomorrow morning at latest.  Part IV, I can't predict.  Good times, anyway, dear Diary, until we meet again.