Dear Diary,

Further evidence that places like Hunts Point and Yarrow Point, that don't pay property taxes to support a public library, aren't just stingy but really can't afford it: I was on a bus Friday evening (April 22) from the Kirkland Transit Center to UW, King County Metro route 255. Now, this has a stop that's flashed overhead as "Clyde Hill/Yarrow". The well-dressed young woman in front of me rang for this stop, only to be discouraged by her friends, who said no, the destination was UW. So the only person who actually got off the bus at the Yarrow Point stop was ... the only visibly homeless person on the bus. I rest my case.

Anyway, I told you, dear Diary, Monday April 18, that this part begins the discussion of 52 private libraries. This was somewhat misleading. The Washington State Library's libraries database does list fifty-one "Special" libraries and one "Government" one (actually owned by a private non-profit) that I haven't already told you about. However, two of those it lists are the libraries of two law firms that have since merged, and three of those it lists are owned by UW, and so aren't private, and are academic. So there are actually 48 private libraries to discuss, plus one more I came across along the way.

This part is about the well-attested ones, those that actually do have their very own websites. (As opposed to, for example, ones that are mentioned on Web pages either outside or inside the owning organisation, but don't have their own. Let alone the not inconsiderable number that are mentioned, as best I can tell, only at the libraries database.) 22 have websites; I'll only briefly list the UW's two at the end of this part so as to fill out the number 53. This leaves 31 for the next part, but that number includes the UW's third, and both merged law libraries. So the real numbers for each part are 20 and 29.

The open ones

Let me start with the ten which either were open to the public without appointments and without fees before the pandemic, are open so now, or both. The ones I'll give bigger headings to and discuss "in [some] detail".

Some of these are entirely volunteer-run; some only partly; I suspect only four (three of which are medical) are fully professionally staffed. The rest consistently encourage people to call ahead to make sure someone is there. So homeless people seeking restrooms shouldn't rely much on them. Anyway, as before, they're in order by crow-flies distance from my house according to this distance calculator.

NAMI Seattle Resource Library

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Seattle has an office which could be seen as being in Ballard or in Crown Hill, 1.83 miles from my house. The only nearby public restrooms appear to be at Ballard Pool, which charges admission. At that office it has a Resource Library (page down for its description), which the database implies was available during open hours, normally 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays. (The organisation has professional staff in Seattle but also appears to rely heavily on volunteers.) Given my own nature, I find that Resource Library an unqualified Good Thing, so it's really unfortunate, quite aside from restroom availability, that the office is still closed.

The Seattle Metaphysical Library

The Seattle Metaphysical Library is in downtown Ballard, more or less surrounded by public restrooms; 2.75 miles. It's entirely volunteer run. They offer library cards to subscribers, which is how they pay the rent, but are "open to the respectful public". They offered nineteen hours per week in December 2019; now they offer eight, but given the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library nearby, not much further the "Portland Loo" at Ballard Commons (the only part of that park that wasn't fenced off the last time I visited), and a few blocks still further the Ballard Community Center... anyway, the reduced hours probably matter more to would-be library visitors than to restroom seekers.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center's Arnold Library

As best I can tell, this is the only medical library anywhere near the city of Seattle currently open to the public (during business hours not documented by signage there, but reported at the libraries database as 8 A.M. to 5 P.M.). However, its website is not currently open to the public, and this has been true as long ago as April 2019. So the following URLs one might encounter for the library all now redirect to a login screen:

The latter two are, however, much more documented at the Internet Archive than the first. And what they document is not a library open to the public. It doesn't list its hours, it doesn't give directions, it doesn't link to its rules, it doesn't say anything welcoming. As far back as I looked, the Arnold Library's website has been primarily about helping writers of grant applications, scientific papers, and other documents produced by working researchers, and secondarily about how those writers should deal with Fred Hutch's bureaucracy.

Nevertheless it really is a medical library open to the public. I was able to walk into its building and into it on Thursday April 21 without any trouble, reasonably clean (but not actually having showered since the previous evening) and with one quite full satchel. I don't know whether the security guard would've waved me past if I'd looked as I usually did while homeless, let alone if I'd been pushing my cart. Also, the library itself doesn't appear to have any plumbing. The building of course must, but I didn't notice restrooms along the hallway, and, assuming security scrutiny, didn't duck into the several constricted side passages of the kind that sometimes lead to indoor restrooms. NB it's a few blocks from Lake Union Park, where the Museum of History and Industry doesn't charge admission to one set of restrooms, when that's open. On the other hand, I know from experience that further north on Fairview and Eastlake there's nothing. So people who visit those areas might do well to remember the Arnold Library and explore its building more than I did.

I'm pretty sure I did see water fountains, but they may not have been in the same building. See, once I got to the right part of Fairview - 1100 Fairview Ave, that's the notional address - I assumed the Arnold Building various signs pointed to was my destination. This completely confused the poor security guard watching over that building. Nope: the doorway one wants is this one, kitty-corner from the Arnold Building around a traffic circle where drivers really resent the existence of pedestrians:

That's the main public entrance to the Thomas Building, where that security guard tried to point me from getgo, and where the Arnold Library actually is, as witness:

Anyway, I thought it would be a public service to photograph all their signage so potential visitors could be better prepared.

Seattle Theatre Group Archive and Library

This isn't documented at the Internet Archive until far too late in the pandemic, but the Seattle Theatre Group's Archive and Library's own page even now goes into some detail: "The collection's contents are searchable by and accessible to everyone, at the Archive and Gallery location in the Paramount building" (4.29 miles), and "On Thursday, March 1, 2012, the Seattle Theatre Group® Historic Theatres Library officially opened to the public." In the database, it's known by that old name; the new name above, while more prosaic, is much less confusing. This isn't a library about the Globe Theatre. It's a library consisting of STG's archives of the Paramount Theatre, which it owns, plus whatever it's been able to scrounge up about the Moore and Neptune theatres, which it runs. Mind, those are all now reasonably historic in their own rights, decades older than I am, two centenarian: Paramount 1928, Moore 1907, and Neptune 1921, according to the English Wikipedia pages each one has. Anyway, as noted, it's in the Paramount building on Pine St in northern downtown, not far from the Convention Center with its wretched, but open, public restrooms. It's at least primarily, perhaps entirely, volunteer-run, and it's still closed. They've been digitising the collections; the page doesn't say whether they expect to re-open to the public, and I wouldn't hazard a guess.

The Museum of Flight Research Center

At the south end of Boeing Field is the Museum of Flight, paid admission to which turns out not to be required in order to visit its Research Center, or rather the public part thereof, the Kenneth H. Dahlberg Reading Room. (At least one page claims the whole Research Center is also named after Dahlberg, but since no page is consistent about it, I have doubts.) The parts off-limit to the public are the Harl V. Brackin Memorial Library and the museum's Archives. In June 2017 the Reading Room, and presumably restrooms near it, were open to the public 35 hours per week, although appointments were strongly recommended. Today appointments are required. The relevant Web pages have been considerably reconfigured; some information for visitors at the Archive seems not to be at the current site, which I can't help suspecting bodes ill for future "drop-in" visitors. Nevertheless the pages are detailed and clearly professional; I'd be very surprised to find volunteers staffing the Research Center.

The Museum's mailing address says Seattle, but both my map (now G.M. Johnson, but apparently still channelling Rand McNally) and this City of Seattle map (PDF) say the museum is south of the Seattle-Tukwila border. In any event, to my astonishment, it's within about a mile of a King County park which, according to the City of Tukwila's page about the park, has restrooms. (King County blesses only a few of its many parks with actual Web pages.) East Marginal Way S to S 102nd St, across the Green River to 27th Ave S to the park. As long as there isn't a pandemic going on; if there is, presumably those restrooms will be closed again.

Sno-Isle Genealogical Society Library

The Sno-Isle Genealogical Society maintains a Research Library whose website currently says it's open eight hours per week. (Again, the Internet Archive didn't cover it until late 2020, but an older website for the library still says twelve.) As the library's URL indicates, it's in a City of Lynnwood park (10.17 miles), and the park's Web page says the library is only open by appointment. What the park's Web page does not say is whether it has park restrooms separate from its historic buildings. (The Web page does say that the buildings in general are only open twelve hours per week, so the library used to offer all it could, and still says it offers appointments on the one additional day it could open. Anyway, yes, it matters in this case whether any restrooms in that park have doors opening to the outside.)

My genealogy doesn't have much to do with the Northwest, so I don't have much to say personally about the genealogical libraries in this page.

Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society

This Society maintains much less of a separate identity from its library than does the Sno-Isle one: their website is the same. That website says masks are still required, so it's obviously a COVID-aware page, and says the library, in Arlington (34.95 miles), is currently open eighteen hours per week. (The same days as the more limited hours at Sno-Isle: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Also, the exact same hours as in February 2019.) It's next door to one park and across the street from another, both of which reputedly have restrooms that probably keep longer hours than this library.

Guemes Island Library

The Guemes Island Library (Facebook link, not at the Archive until I just tried and failed to put it there) is on Guemes Island, which is across the Guemes Channel from Fidalgo Island where Anacortes is. Guemes appears to cover more square miles than Anacortes, but has a much smaller population (there were just 605 people in 2000 in a census tract that included, but wasn't limited to, Guemes, per English Wikipedia), so even if this weren't library-impoverished Skagit County we were talking about, it probably wouldn't have a branch library of its own.

So instead it has a community club library, 60.19 miles. They're directly north from the ferry terminal, they're open Thursdays through Mondays, 12:30 to 3:00 P.M., and they're volunteer-run. Should one be on Guemes Island looking for a restroom at other times, there's a church between the library and the ferry terminal; a mile further north from the library is a Skagit County park said to have restrooms. (Another such park is at the opposite end of the island from the ferry terminal, another mile or two north.)

PeaceHealth St Joseph Medical Center Library

These last two are awkward, because the page I found on Monday April 18, or perhaps Sunday April 17, while going through the list, is already now 404. But it's documented by six captures at the Internet Archive, and from April 2016 to May 2021 those said the same thing I saw earlier this week: that these libraries are open to the public. Putting it mildly, that isn't usual for hospitals' medical libraries, and I greatly fear the disappearance of the page is not a sign that the relevant hospitals have decided to do without libraries, but rather a sign that a new page that doesn't invite non-employees is in the offing. I'm not in a position to go to either hospital soon to find out.

Anyway, this one is in Bellingham, 76.19 miles from my house, and in case it has in fact closed to the public, there's a City of Bellingham park with restrooms a couple of blocks away.

PeaceHealth St John Medical Center Library

This one is in Longview, 110.63 miles from my house and, as previously indicated, a mile or two from the Columbia River. The nearest park, practically on the hospital's doorstep to the west, has restrooms, but I strongly suspect they aren't the nearest park restrooms, because that park surrounds a long, narrow lake. Rather I suggest a park to the east which is less long, or just go north to the library.

The appointment ones

These are libraries that could be entered without paying a fee, but were only open by appointment, before the pandemic.

Sound Transit's Research Library isn't documented in the Internet Archive until September 2020, but the libraries database itself, which is noticeably unaware of COVID-19, says it's open to the public only by appointment. It's in Union Station, 5.29 miles from my house, and still requires an appointment. I think the closest public restrooms during business hours are at City Hall several blocks north; nights and weekends, probably rather farther. And yes, I probably should've treated Sound Transit as a governmental owner, since it levies taxes. Sorry, dear Diary. Anyway, one reason this is so late is that I wanted to take a photograph of the doors, because I remembered something from a project I still haven't written about in you.

Well, actually, no, that isn't what I remembered. The next door east of that one still has the signs I remembered, as do several other doors to that building I saw today. (Yesterday, for anyone so technical as to think the day begins at midnight.) See:

Yep, building closed due to COVID-19. And no, I'm not picking on this one because it's government. We saw up above that whoever works at the Arnold Library is still staying home, although the security guards aren't. (And are they better paid for taking risks the librarians won't? What do you think, dear Diary?) And we'll see even worse in the next part. But if the library is open by appointment, and it's in a closed building, when are appointments available for? Next week or next decade?
Providence Archives, which is essentially the archives of a religious order across six Western states, including the archives of its medical work, appears to belong in this list, though I'm not sure; its hours page either says researchers from among the general public may only enter by appointment, or says researchers on staff are only available by appointment. Things were pretty much the same in September 2019, except that now it's very clear that the archives are closed. They're in West Seattle (8.42 miles), a couple of blocks from Fairmount Playground, which is reputed to have restrooms, and somewhat farther from the Seattle Public Library's High Point branch.
Puget Sound Maritime's Library and Archives, located in Georgetown (8.68 miles), is a few blocks from Georgetown Playfield, which is a good thing since it was only open one day per week and only by appointment already in April 2018, and is now entirely closed. Note please that this is at the same address as the Museum of History and Industry's Resource Center, which doesn't have its own Web page and is in the next part, and which appears to have the same rules.

The fee ones

These are libraries that could only be entered by paying either an entry fee or for a membership, before the pandemic. Fees are stated as for ordinary adults, except when the institution offers discounts to poor people.

The National Nordic Museum's Research Center, including the Walter Johnson Memorial Library, appears to be accessible only to people who both pay admission ($20, but $2 for people with relevant poverty cards; membership $55) and make an appointment. That said, appointments are now available for a wider range of the week than in January 2020, six hours three days per week as opposed to two days then; and I'm sure restrooms are accessible in the rest of the museum without an appointment anyway. It's in Ballard, west of downtown on Market St, 3.03 miles from my house; the Seattle Public Library's Ballard branch to the east, Ballard Community Center to the north, and the Ballard Locks to the southwest are about equally distant for any who don't have the $2 or the card.
The Fiske Genealogical Library offers a price of $5 per day or $50 per year. Currently, it's only open by appointment, but it was open 21 or 24 hours per week, plus a window for appointments, in August 2018. It's near the northeast corner of southern Seattle, 3.66 miles, and broke people should go instead to the restrooms at Madison Park, just north of the library. Anyway, their online index to their collections is so good that it only took me about a quarter hour to become reasonably certain they have nothing on my ancestry; others' mileage may vary.
Historic Fort Steilacoom Assocation's Research Library requires a membership now ($20), and required one in January 2020. It's also only open by appointment even after one pays. However, while they also charge ($5) for guided tours of the fort, the "interpretive center", which I, perhaps naïvely, assume has restrooms, may be free (what they say is "complimentary", so maybe it's only free to paid-up tourists). 36.18 miles. In case I'm wrong about the interpretive center - either about free or about restrooms - the City of Lakewood's Fort Steilacoom Park, not too far down the road, boasts that it has year-round restrooms.
The Mountaineers Olympia Branch Olympia Library is apparently kept at the librarian's home, so unsurprisingly requires a membership ($75 per year) to consult, plus an appointment. I wouldn't bet that even jumping through those hoops would entitle one to use the plumbing. The situation was pretty similar in April 2019. I don't know where the librarian's home is, but the distance calculator puts Olympia in general about 52 miles away. This is the addition to the database's listing; looking for the Seattle branch listed in the next page, I searched the Mountaineers' general website for "library", and this was the top result other than their Gear Library.

The closed ones

These are medical libraries that have websites, but give no evidence at all of being open to the public. This isn't the same thing as saying they aren't open to the public, but some of these come much closer to saying that than others. And all of these libraries' URLs explicitly say something like "for medical people".

Swedish Health Services has a library that's explicitly not open to the public: "Library Services is for the use of the Swedish Health Services medical and hospital staff. (Patients, patients' families, and the general public should be referred to the Health Resource Center.)" Swedish is now owned by Providence, because after all we all know that only Catholic organisations are now allowed to own hospitals in the US, and Providence now lists this library on its own list of libraries, but hasn't gotten around to changing Swedish's domain name yet. In any event, the page said the same thing in November 2017, so the library's closedness to the public isn't Providence's fault. The library is, of course, in Swedish's First Hill campus, 4.60 miles, where it's kind of a hike to any public restrooms, but Seattle University's Lemieux Library is just downhill.
The libraries database lists a Providence library in Olympia, but the one I found at Providence's website is in Everett, at what used to be Everett General at the north end of town, 23.21 miles. The Internet Archive doesn't have the current URL. Everett Community College is a few blocks north. The site listing Providence libraries that I just pointed to includes ones from California to Alaska, but doesn't currently include any in Olympia. Unlike the other two in this list, this one doesn't say anything obtrusive to show it isn't open to the public, but I'd still bet it isn't.
Virginia Mason Franciscan Health's Franciscan Library. They say: "Work-related library services are offered at no charge to Virginia Mason Franciscan Health physicians and staff. Non work-related projects are done on an as-time-allows basis and will involve a cost recovery fee." That sure doesn't sound to me like they're open to the public. The Internet Archive doesn't have the pre-COVID, pre-merger URL, https://www.chifranciscan.org/content/chi-franciscan/en/for-medical-staff/franciscan-library. The main library is in Tacoma, 30.22 miles from my house. That's across the street from Metro Tacoma Parks's People's Center, but the center appears to charge admission, so it looks like the homeless person's best bet around there is the UW Tacoma campus's library, several blocks east. There are also branches in:
- Lakewood, 36.87 miles, near the train station, an area I'm familiar with as rather a desert for public restrooms - one could try the Pierce County Library System's Lakewood branch, 1.00 miles from the hospital as the crow flies and about twice that walking
- Federal Way, 26.47 miles, next door to the King County Library System's Federal Way branch.

Interlopers

Finally, two libraries belonging to UW that have their own websites are listed among the "special" libraries, rather than the academic ones. One is simple: many of the other law libraries are "special", therefore so is Gallagher Law Library. The other is weirder. It's not that the Health Sciences Library tried to put itself among the other medical libraries. Rather, the Network of the National Library of Medicine designates seven regional libraries across the nation to represent it, and the Health Sciences Library is Region 5's. (And why isn't that governmental? I'd like to ask.) Anyway, I won't keep you in suspense, dear Diary; these libraries are still closed to the public.

And all that stands between me (and you) and the academic libraries such as these in which I did much of my growing up is 29 (supposedly 31) more private libraries. I expect them to take me a few more days, dear Diary. Happy nights and days until then.

My Seattle Parks Diary

Saturday, April 30, 2022

Library Hours Six Months Later, part VIII: Private libraries with websites