Dear Diary,
I hope you had, sigh, good nights and day. This part of this page concerns six libraries - well, three individual libraries and three multi-branch systems - which appear to offer free library cards to most Washingtonians with or without reciprocity, as Sno-Isle Libraries, Kitsap Regional Library, Timberland Regional Library and Puyallup Public Library from the previous part also appear to.
I can't help thinking that it's possible that these mostly smaller libraries only say that because they haven't experienced the rapacity Seattleites, in particular, are known for in matters biblioholic (that's why we aren't allowed many holds at the King County Library System, for example). So I have two public service intentions for this part of this page: to let readers know about these libraries where we may be able to get cards; but also, to notify these libraries' staff in case they don't actually mean what they say that suggests we might be able to get cards.
All six, as well as all the libraries in the list, at the end of this part, of public libraries in western Washington that definitely don't offer Seattleites free cards at all, are even farther away from my house than PPL, furthest in the previous part, and the first two are across Puget Sound as well. Even though my house isn't actually at the centre of Seattle, for practical purposes that means the Seattle Public Library, however short its list of reciprocal borrowing agreements may be compared to some places, has actually negotiated them with all public libraries within a reasonable distance of Seattle. (The closest east beyond KCLS - Roslyn and Leavenworth - are both twice as far as PPL, so yes, this is definite.)
In the previous part, I commented on some libaries' codes of conduct, but not others'. I continued that in first writing this part until it led me to say something that turned out not to be true. So I've taken all that out, and intend a separate part about library codes of conduct in relation to homeless people, focusing on the nine in the previous part and these next six.
The Port Townsend Public Library
The Port Townsend Public Library is a single-building institution, 36.58 miles from my house according to this distance calculator, but it's more prominent than most such in western Washington. It lists reciprocal borrowing agreements with KCLS and KRL from the last part of this page, and with the North Olympic Library System, up next. It doesn't even bother to list its links to Jefferson County Library as reciprocal. Those two libraries are joined at the hip in many ways (JCL's own history page says it started in a room at PTPL), and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that their ties don't actually function in the same way as reciprocal borrowing agreements do. One obvious way this is true is the opening line of PTPL's getting a library card page: "Your Port Townsend Library card is also accepted at Jefferson County Library in Port Hadlock!" Hint: No, I can't use my SPL card at KCLS branches. But then, both libraries issue cards to Jefferson County residents in general anyway.
But what lands PTPL on this list isn't its reciprocal agreement with KCLS, but its lack of one with SPL. It says this: "People who live elsewhere in Washington State or have a mailing address outside of Washington State with picture ID and proof of permanent address or temporary Port Townsend mailing address including General Delivery or post office box may obtain a visitor card. These cards limit the holder to 10 items checked out and automatically expire at the end of 6 months. Visitor cards are not eligible for interlibrary loan services." One thing to note here is that "General Delivery". General Delivery is the US equivalent of "poste restante": one's mail is held at the Post Office until one claims it. That was my address for eight and a half years; in the US, or at least in Seattle, it is today heavily identified with the homeless, although occasionally others use it (I've heard it's used by women escaping abusers, for example). So PTPL is in my bad books for restricting the homeless, although this is a better card than any offered by libraries in the previous part except for Timberland Regional Library's, of those that have special cards for homeless people. (In other news, lots of sites commemorate the library having sponsored a screening of a documentary about homelessness last year.) But it's in my good books for what appears to be, if I've parsed that run-on sentence correctly, vast scope: They're offering cards to anyone in the world who has "picture ID and proof of permanent address". Spoiler: None of the other five libraries in this list are that catholic.
PTPL's hours aren't kept on its home page, unlike many individual libraries, and the page where they are kept was first archived April 8, 2020. However, that capture shows what looks like normal, unaffected by COVID-19, hours. (There's copious evidence at the Internet Archive that City of Port Townsend Web pages in general first got lockdown banners around that date.) PTPL was, according to those hours, open 55 hours per week, opening at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, closing at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 Fridays, and 5 Saturdays, and open 1 to 5 P.M. Sundays. It's now open 45 hours per week: closed Mondays, and closing at 5 P.M. Fridays.
North Olympic Library System
NOLS's Sequim branch is 45.77 miles from my house.
The North Olympic Library System offers (PDF) this: "Full Service cards may also be issued to residents of communities within Washington State that provide tax support for public library services. Proof of ID, current address, and a library card from that community library are required." This is more typical of this sort of rule, as we've already seen, dear Diary, from SIL, KRL, TRL and PPL in the previous part. Curiously, because NOLS doesn't distinguish between this sort of card and resident cards, it appears to offer inter-library loan services to outsiders. This is an example of why I'm not confident these offers are well thought through.
Apparently General Delivery is well known across Puget Sound from here. "The Limited Service card allows a patron to have up to two (2) items checked out at any given time. Limited Service cards may be issued to any individual who does not meet qualifications for a Full Service card, but who can establish proof of identity by any means described in section 3.1.7 of this policy. If “General Delivery” is given as patron’s mailing address, they will be issued a Limited Service card." A version much more like KCLS's old limits. They do take care to refuse ILL service to holders of these cards. NOLS seems to come up in relation to a bunch of basic things related to homelessness, for example the annual or biennial point-in-time count and something called Clallam County Project Homeless Connect, but the most intriguing thing I found was evidence that in 2002 an NOLS librarian read a since-deleted blog on Blogspot from a homeless man in her hometown of Nashville.
They also offer cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
NOLS has four branches, and both before the pandemic (February 2019, alas) and now, had and has three schedules for those branches. The Port Angeles Main Library and Sequim both open at 10 A.M. every day except Sundays, and close at 6 P.M. Fridays and 5 P.M. Saturdays. Before, they closed at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays; now 7 P.M. So they've lost four hours out of 55 per week. Forks also opens at 10 A.M. every day except Sundays; it closed and closes at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, but used to close at 6 P.M. on Fridays and Saturdays, now 5 P.M. So it's down two hours out of 52. Finally, Clallam Bay was and is open 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Thursdays and Fridays, but was open 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. Mondays through Wednesdays, now 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., so it's held steady at 38 hours.
Central Skagit Library District
The Central Skagit Library District also refers to itself as the Sedro-Woolley Library. The district, consisting of most of the Sedro-Woolley School District and immensely larger than the city, was founded in 2012. Sedro-Woolley, which already had a public library since before 1913, agreed to a 20-year partnership in 2017, and a new library building, apparently already intended by Sedro-Woolley, was built which opened in 2021. (Near as I can tell, Sedro-Woolley hasn't actually acceded, which local discussion refers to by the alternative term "annexed". I have no idea how the library would be divided if the partnership broke up in 2032 - no, that isn't 20 years from 2017, but it's when the deal is scheduled to end anyway - but suspect the hope is that by then Sedro-Woolley voters, 60% of whom have to approve accession, will be so used to the merger that the vote will be a landslide.) Anyway, that new library is 57.35 miles from my house. The areas like Hunts Point too poor to pay the district's property taxes are Lyman and Hamilton (which latter, per Wikipedia, might actually be kinda poor). Observe, then:
"Who can get a CSLD library card?
"People who live or own property in the Central Skagit Library District* or in the City of Sedro-Woolley,* or are Sedro-Woolley School District faculty are eligible for a CSLD library card with no fee.
"Sedro-Woolley School District students who live outside of CSLD (in Lyman or Hamilton, for example) are eligible for a limited use card with no fee
"People who live in an area in Washington that provides tax support for public library service are eligible for a CSLD library card with no fee.
"People who do not live in an area in Washington that provides tax support for public library service may purchase a CSLD library card for $80 per year. This includes Lyman, Hamilton, and some other areas of Skagit County."
The asterisk refers to the Skagit County assessor's website, where one can find out whether one is in the district or city. My guess is that the limited use card mentioned is what a CSLD librarian would default to, confronted by a homeless card applicant, but maybe not; I'm not pestering any of these six libraries, or those listed below, with questions. That said, they nowhere clarify what the limits of a limited use card actually are. My searches for other sites relevant to CSLD and the homeless turned up a very false positive that's still a very good presentation of homelessness in Sedro-Woolley, from, of all things, the high school's student newspaper site. A Reentry Resource Guide, presumably for people released from incarceration (who, I must admit, very often end up homeless), has a confusing note "No proof of identification required" for CSLD; comparing to the other Skagit County libraries listed, I suspect, but don't know, that means people can use the computers without a library card.
Their reciprocal borrowing agreements appear to be limited to the other Skagit County libraries; they don't list them on their current website, but the January 2020 version mentioned these on the home page, and I haven't found Central Skagit in any other library's list. At the meeting (PDF) where open access for Washington residents was first discussed, SIL and Whatcom County Library System, ahead, were mentioned as models of this, with gratitude because that's what people in the district did for library service before the district, but it doesn't seem to have been on CSLD's agenda to negotiate proper reciprocal agreements with those libraries yet.
Their hours are at the bottom of their home page. In January 2020 they opened Mondays through Saturdays at 10 A.M., closing at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays. Now they open Tuesdays through Saturdays at 9 A.M., closing at 7 P.M. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays. So they're open 46 hours per week now, as opposed to 54 before the pandemic.
Whatcom County Library System
WCLS's South Whatcom branch (in Sudden Valley) is 70.43 miles from my house.
Whatcom County Library System offers (PDF): "The following categories of individuals are eligible to register for WCLS library cards with provision of current address and proof of identity:" "Residents of jurisdictions within Washington State that provide equitable tax support for public library service. In addition to current address and proof of identity, applicants must present a library card from their local jurisdiction. NOTE: Borrowing privileges for electronic materials and/or access to online services may be limited depending on vendor contracts." This listing is after: residents of Whatcom County; students in Whatcom County; teachers in Whatcom County; oh, wait, some students get lesser cards; owners and employees in Whatcom County; and reciprocal borrowing agreement libraries' residents. It comes before cards for fees. None of this is in their get a library card page, which is all sweetness and light and no mention of, or even links to, the details.
And to find WCLS's actual list of reciprocal borrowing agreements, I had to read their budget (PDF), of all things. On its fifth page it mentions agreements with the two Skagit County library districts that aren't Central Skagit, and with the Fraser Valley Regional Library (which the budget calls Fraser Valley Library System) in Canada. It notably doesn't mention an agreement with Bellingham Public Library, with which its ties are considerably closer (much more below).
If WCLS have special limited cards for homeless people (again, limited cards for certain students offer a model), they hide it well. They have all the right pages related to homelessness at their website, and none of it seems to have to do with library privileges. They brought in a guy called Ryan Dowd who runs a shelter in Illinois, and who wrote a book titled The Librarian's Guide to Homelessness, for a public event. Their code of conduct looks to me pretty hostile towards homeless people, and is what triggered the review that led me to take that stuff out of this part. Basically, I can't figure out WCLS's take on homelessness.
WCLS has ten branches, and is building another. For the ten now in existence, there were in November 2019, and now are, seven schedules. Ferndale and Lynden opened at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, closing at 9 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 Fridays, and 5 Saturdays, and were open 1 to 5 P.M. Sundays, for a total of 63 hours per week. Blaine, Deming (Nooksack Reservation) and Everson had the same schedules except that they closed at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, and they weren't open Sundays, for a total of 55 hours. North Fork and South Whatcom were closed Mondays, and closed at 6 P.M. one weekday each, for a total of 43 hours. And Island (near the Lummi Reservation), Point Roberts and Sumas were each closed four days per week, with total hours ranging from 19 for Island to 23 for Sumas. Now, Ferndale and Lynden are open at 9 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, but close at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, for a total of 65 hours. The schedules at Blaine, Deming, Everson, North Fork, and South Whatcom haven't changed. And Island has added an hour, tying it with Point Roberts; but also, Sumas has been closed since November because of a flood. (Before that it was back to its full number of hours, but with a slight change of schedule.)
The Bellingham Public Library
BPL's Fairhaven branch is 72.73 miles from my house.
The Bellingham Public Library offers free cards to people who A) "Live, work, own property or attend school in the City of Bellingham or Whatcom County. (Either a Bellingham Public Library or Whatcom County Library card will be issued, based on the service area where your address is located)" or B) "Live in Washington State (outside Whatcom County) and show your home public library card when applying for a Bellingham Public Library card." The applicant is also, if adult, expected to show photo ID.
Exotically,
my first interesting result concerning the homeless showed up here. I
was struck by the way this policy shifts from the usual 'proof of
address' to 'able to get ID'. For example, my own current state
ID shows the address of a shelter I've visited twice (neither time in
order to take shelter), because that's what Washington Department of
Licensing employees in Seattle are instructed to do when issuing IDs to
homeless people. I have no idea what their colleagues in Bellingham are
told to do, but am pretty sure homeless people in Bellingham can also
get IDs. So anyway, I did some digging. The current BPL policy was first broached at a November 2018 meeting, at which a "homeless patron" pointed out that photo ID can also be hard to get, which is an appropriate thing for that person to have done, but my point is that it's a lot easier for most homeless people to get a photo ID than to get an address.
Other things about homelessness and BPL: They do, unlike PTPL and CSLD, visibly offer some level of social services. However, in winter 2020-2021, a camp was set up near the downtown library (and City Hall) to protest the lack of cold weather shelter, and the library appears to have responded by repeatedly suspending services at the main branch, which at that time consisted of pickup, return, and a telephone reference help line. A year earlier, the library had actually opened a room as an overflow women's shelter, but then, of course, COVID. Protests related to the camp in January 2021 culminated in a storming of City Hall, the UK's Daily Mail reports in an article surprisingly good once one gets past the sensationalism. Someone posted a good Bellingham Herald article at Reddit; the comments started out strong but then fell apart. At any rate, these incidents drown out anything else that might be online about BPL and homelessness.
Meanwhile, the deal between BPL and WCLS
(PDF) started informal in the 1940s (as with SPL/KCLS), turned
into a reciprocal borrowing agreement in the 1980s (ten years behind
SPL/KCLS), but is now such that, as in Jefferson County, either
library's card is good in the other's branches (except, apparently, for a
few narrowly licensed online resources) and there's a lot more
collaboration behind the scenes. (The main reason Bellingham doesn't
accede to WCLS is that Bellingham spends more on its libraries than the
property tax levy would allow.) BPL therefore regards WCLS's reciprocal borrowing agreements as applying, in practice, to it too (PDF; see page 6). I doubt it's negotiated any agreements its own self except that first one with WCLS.
The Camas Public Library
The Camas Public Library, which is 144.31 miles from my house, three miles from the border of Vancouver, Washington, and a few blocks from the Columbia River, says (PDF): "The Camas Public Library will provide library services free of charge to any person who lives within the boundaries of a political jurisdiction that provides tax-supported public library services." Now, in principle this could just mean the kinds of library services that are normally free to anyone who enters a public library in the United States - browsing, asking questions of the librarians, looking at physical materials. But precisely because those are open to anyone, including those wretches in places like Hunts Point that can't afford tax-supported library services, they can't be the services meant here. So I think, though I'm not certain, that CPL is here saying it offers library cards to people from all over Washington. (But actually, also even from Hunts Point, if they pay a fee.)
It probably also offers cards to people from Oregon, and maybe from all over the world, I dunno. CPL in particular brags about its reciprocal borrowing agreements (PDF, page 2), but doesn't bother to list them in anything I can find online. (They're located in Appendix 4 of a Policy Manual, neither of which is online as such.) And it brings up those agreements in the very next paragraph to the one I quoted. So it's natural to think, then, that it only offers library cards to its reciprocal borrowing partners. The only places that admit to having agreements with CPL are Fort Vancouver Regional Library, and a group of Oregon libraries, admittedly including most or all of metropolitan Portland.
At any rate, under the hypothesis that CPL does offer cards to Seattleites, let's get on with this. There are strong hints in their residential borrower policy (PDF) that CPL doesn't have special cards or no cards for homeless people: they ask only for "official photo identification", not proof of address, and they ask to be notified when a patron's "residential and/or mailing address" changes. Not a guarantee, but I wouldn't bet on their treating homeless patrons as second-class. The Camas-Washoughal Post-Record ran an article in 2018 about homeless people in downtown Camas as a new thing, though old hat in several nearby cities. Most of the article consists of quoting various authorities on how to react to the homeless; it's not a comfortable article for pearl-clutchers. Their rules of conduct include none of the things homeless people are likeliest to trip over. CPL doesn't appear to have taken on social service work yet, but at least it doesn't seem to have any bad habits to get over.
The Internet Archive's most recent pre-pandemic copy of CPL's home page, which consistently reports their hours, is from April 2017. It shows the exact same hours CPL is keeping now, opening at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, closing at 8 P.M. Mondays through Wednesdays and at 6 P.M. Thursdays through Saturdays, and closed on Sundays, for a total of 54 hours per week then and now.
I've never found anything I cared about, in Worldcat, whose nearest copy was in Camas, and I'm never likely to visit CPL, but between their hours, their apparent generosity with library cards, and their apparent refusal to criminalise homelessness, I think they've earned a little whimsy. Their whole website is designed around the fact that they keep a beehive out back. Enjoy, if you like.
Other western Washington public libraries
In the previous part, I speculated that the reason the Sno-Isle Libraries don't talk about their reciprocal borrowing agreements is to keep those agreements' costs down. Looking at this list (which I wrote before writing about SIL), and the one above (which I wrote *after* SIL), I can't help thinking that many libraries must do similar things, whether or not that's why SIL or any other particular library is silent.
Most of these libraries' websites give the impression that those libraries have never had to consider what to do with people who don't have fixed addresses. They don't describe special cards for the homeless, but also don't explicitly say that the homeless can get cards. There are exceptions.
- Jefferson County Library, district, Jefferson County, 32.46 miles from my house (in Port Hadlock). Policy allows for reciprocal borrowing agreements, but the site nowhere mentions the agreement asserted by KCLS; it puts the agreement asserted by the Port Townsend Public Library into a context of a broader library agreement including several school libraries and the library of the Northwest Maritime Center. Policy allows people without proof of address to get "limited privileges" cards, but nothing says how many items anyone can check out. Doesn't say whether it offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee, but I wouldn't bet on it.
- La Conner Regional Library,
district, Skagit County, 50.10 miles. In reality, has reciprocal
agreements with at least the other Skagit County libraries and WCLS, but its
website says little about library card qualifications, mostly this
breathtakingly hard-ass statement about them: "To get a free card online,
you must own or rent property within the boundaries of the La Conner
School District and be over 18. If you do not live in the District
boundaries, but would like to purchase a card, it is $50 per year. You
must come into the library to purchase a nonresident card." This library is twenty years older in its district form than CSLD, but its district has one-fifth the population, which I suppose excuses whoever writes its website for cutting to the chase.
- The Mount Vernon City Library, municipal, Skagit County, 51.19 miles. Explicitly has reciprocal borrowing agreements with the other Skagit County libraries. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
- The Burlington Public Library, municipal, Skagit County, 55.21 miles. Doesn't list its reciprocal borrowing agreements, but at least has them with other Skagit County libraries. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
- The Anacortes Public Library,
municipal, Skagit County, 59.65 miles. Explicitly has reciprocal
borrowing agreements with the other Skagit County libraries. Offers
cards to non-residents for a recurring fee, including shorter-term cards.
- Lopez Island Library, district, San Juan County, 64.35 miles. Its website doesn't mention reciprocal borrowing, but according to the other partners it has agreements with the other two San Juan County libraries; in 2015 these libraries jointly investigated making an agreement with KCLS (PDF). Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee, but "Non-resident cards are for people who visit the island frequently throughout the year or who live on a neighboring island without a library.", not, apparently, for people who just want to borrow something the Lopez Island Library happens to have.
- Upper Skagit Library District, district, Skagit County, 65.42 miles (in Concrete). Explicitly has reciprocal borrowing agreements with the other Skagit County libraries, and also with, it says, SIL, TRL, and WCLS. (TRL and WCLS confirm this; SIL, as already mentioned, doesn't use the word "reciprocal".) Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
- San Juan Island Library, municipal, San Juan County, 67.77 miles (in Friday Harbor). Explicitly has reciprocal borrowing agreements with the other two San Juan County libraries. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
- Orcas Island Library, district, San Juan County, 75.44 miles (in Eastsound). Explicitly has reciprocal borrowing agreements with the other two San Juan County libraries. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee, but also shorter-term, cheaper, visitor cards.
- The Castle Rock Public Library, municipal, Cowlitz County, 100.52 miles. Its bare-bones website says nothing about how one gets a library card. One reason for this is that after years of not being able to switch to a library district because, as mentioned above, that requires a supermajority vote for a property tax increase, the librarian is a volunteer (threat of paywall). Two votes followed that article, in August and again in November 2021, when the result was 57% in favour - see near the bottom of that page. I hope that upstanding citizen Tim Eyman is proud; that's the same percentage who voted for his initiative 747 creating that supermajority requirement. What I'd like to see happen is that someone creates a rural library district out of those areas that voted over 60% by promising to make the same kind of deal with Castle Rock as the Central Skagit library made with Sedro-Woolley, and just let the naysayers go. But I'm sure there's some legal reason they can't do that.
- The Kelso Public Library, municipal, Cowlitz County, 109.66 miles. Explicitly has a reciprocal borrowing agreement with Longview Public Library; doesn't mention an agreement the Fort Vancouver Regional Library says it has. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
- The Longview Public Library, municipal, Cowlitz County, 109.87 miles. Explicitly has a reciprocal borrowing agreement with Kelso Public Library, but doesn't mention agreements asserted by Cathlamet Public Library and Fort Vancouver Regional Library. Also has, or had, a contract offering library services to a rural library district covering part of Cowlitz County. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
- The Cathlamet Public Library, municipal, Wahkiakum County, 113.39 miles. Explicitly has a reciprocal borrowing agreement with Longview Public Library; doesn't mention an agreement the Fort Vancouver Regional Library says it has. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
- Fort Vancouver Regional Library, district, Klickitat, Skamania, most of Clark and parts of Cowlitz counties; its Yale Valley branch, 116.44 miles (in Ariel). Its list of proofs of address includes "voter registration card", "vehicle registration", and "piece of mail addressed to you"; I'm pretty sure FVRL has encountered homeless people, and it looks like it offers them full service cards. Explicitly has reciprocal borrowing agreements with the Camas, Cathlamet, Kalama, Kelso and Longview libraries, with KCLS, PCLS, SIL, TRL, NOLS and the Yakima Valley Libraries (eastern Washington), and with a whole bunch of Oregon libraries. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee, but only "if you live in an area geographically next to the FVRL district (but not in a reciprocal system) or are a temporary resident of the FVRL district."
- The Kalama Public Library, municipal, Cowlitz County, 117.64 miles. Its website says nothing about reciprocal borrowing agreements, including one the Fort Vancouver Regional Library says it has. It calls for government issued photo ID, proof of Kalama residence, and a mailing address: "e.g., Kalama P. O. Box or street address". I'm not sure whether that implies homeless people can get cards or not, but I lean towards not, unless they pay for a P.O. Box. Offers cards to non-residents for a recurring fee.
OK, dear Diary: I've now listed every public library in western Washington that I found at the Washington Secretary of State's site. Nine where Seattleites can get cards for free (well, modulo travel cost), six where we might be able to, and fifteen where we can't.
The next part will discuss the codes of conduct of the fifteen libraries which do or might offer us free cards. The part after that will return to library hours, and offer some comparisons among those fifteen libraries. And then, probably later than this week, come the academic libraries. Until then, dear Diary, happy times.
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