Library Hours Six Months Later, part IX: Private libraries without websites

Dear Diary,

I hope you've had a good rest.  To make up for (and, really, partly explain) my long absence, this is a really, really long part.  It covers 31 listings at the Washington State Library's libraries database.  I thought, back in April, that it would be easy, because very little is online about most of them, but I was wrong - that just made it harder to give up, and harder to leave any of that little out.

The split is a little different from the previous part, because in general, nobody authoritative says on what terms any of these libraries is (or is not) open to the public, so there's no point in splitting them as to appointments or fees.  Rather, the split is this way:  ones that some evidence suggests may be open to the public under some conditions; ones that some evidence suggests are never open to the public; and ones for which there's no evidence either way.  I also distinguish, in each of those groups, between ones attested at the owners' website, ones attested elsewhere but not at the owners' website, and ones attested nowhere but the library database.  Split nine ways, I'm sure these many libraries will be much easier to tell apart.  (And despite my many complaints over the months, only eight are law libraries.)  As in previous parts, the lists are sorted by distance from my house as reported at this distance calculator.

I've been surprised, in researching this part of this page, to learn that the database's term for most of these libraries - "special libraries" - isn't just a synonym for "miscellaneous".  There's actually such a thing as a Special Libraries Association, which is over a century old.  Online descriptions of SLA events are significant sources of documentation for several libraries in this part.

This part links to a lot of LinkedIn pages.  I think I've figured out, today while checking all the links, why LinkedIn pages are sometimes viewable for me and sometimes not; I think LinkedIn has a registration wall that allows only so many views in some duration.  So someone who actually wants to check all the links too should probably not plan to do so in one day.  Also, this page includes one GlassDoor link.  It appears that GlassDoor allows only one free view before registration, and for a longer duration than LinkedIn too.

The possibly open ones

Documented at the owner's website

• The Museum of History and Industry Research Center, as mentioned in the previous part, is in Georgetown, 8.68 miles from my house.  Since the Puget Sound Maritime Library and Archives is at the same address, it's plausible that MOHAI's library follows the same rules (pre-pandemic:  appointment required, on only one day per week), but actually, the only evidence for its existence that I found outside the libraries database and Puget Sound Maritime's website is this Web form for requesting an appointment, which says in-person visits are still temporarily closed (yes, even today, after all this delay, dear Diary!).  So again, one who needs a restroom around there should head to Georgetown Playfield.
• The Squaxin Island Museum Library and Research Center, 52.09 miles, is about halfway between Olympia and Shelton, on the reservation.  Of the Indian tribes of western Washington, this is the only one whose library appears to be in private hands; the museum is a non-profit, not run by the tribal government.  The "Library" part is very poorly documented online.  I read several accounts by tourists, each of whom mentions that a library exists, but says nothing more about it.  One has to look pretty hard to find evidence of the library at the museum's website.  Not only does it not have its own page, in their about page there's a list of the museum's features, none of which is a library.  But further down that page we read: "The MLRC is a place for researching current issues as well as history. It is a gateway to a wide range of educational information including ... a large variety of books, tribal documents ...".  The list ends with "and internet services", which may imply that there's a physical library space, not just a collection of books on a shelf near the café.  That said, the museum charges admission, though not much, and although it reports being open forty hours per week, Tuesdays through Saturdays, "Please always call prior to visiting."  Should one be around there at a time when the museum isn't open or when one's pocket doesn't hold $5, the only things nearby that I think might conceivably offer public restrooms are the tribal government office, a short way northeast, or the basketball gym, due east across the pond.
• The Whale Museum is on San Juan Island, in Friday Harbor, near the ferry terminal (which the San Juan Island Library is not; 67.44 miles).  Several sources of information about its library conflict.  The libraries database says it isn't open to the public.  The donation page says it is so open to the public, because it's physically at the San Juan Island Library, about half a mile inland from the museum.  And the membership page announces a "research library" as a member benefit, but this appears to refer to part of the website, not a physical place.  Well, anyhow, this page has already covered the San Juan Island Library; if the museum library also includes space inside the museum, that's $10 and open six hours each day.  The museum is near the ferry, but the ferry terminal's restrooms apparently aren't big enough at least according to the town in 2018 (141-page PDF; see page numbered 5-16); it's also near the Port of Friday Harbor, which has restrooms for marina users (38-page PDF, see page numbered 8) which it was badmouthing in that 2014 document apparently meant to justify spending money.  I think it's probably a bad idea to eat or drink on any day one intends to be on San Juan Island without the $10 museum admission, unless the public library is open.  Or maybe San Juan Island government bodies, if they don't want that to be the area's image, should avoid using publicly owned restrooms as punching bags in their documents quite so often.
  

Documented on the Web

• PACCAR's Technical Library is anæmically documented online, mainly by library trade sites.  The libraries database already notes that it's involved in a couple of these, and a librarian there participates in others.  But the thing is, the address given for it is much better known as the address of PACCAR's Technical Center near the Skagit Regional Airport (with a Mount Vernon address), 54.86 miles.  This also doesn't have its own Web page - and PACCAR's general Web page for its Technical Center(s) hadn't, when I first worked on this part of this page, been updated since early 2020 - but thanks to that fact, the page itself mentioned an "Open House", and the libraries database says it (was) open to the public by appointment.  It is, in fact, a prominent local employer and a minor tourism draw.  That said, the page has now been updated:  it's now put the cancelled April 2020 open house into the past tense, and it's copyright 2022 in the footer.  However, no new open houses are being announced.  So it very likely isn't a good place to look for restrooms on the spur of the moment, and unless the airport or Heritage Flight Museum (which charges admission) offers some, one would have to go to the nearest park, which does have them, but is about two miles away and is a state park that also charges admission.  So the outskirts of Mount Vernon may be yet another place where the wanderer should fast.
  

The uncertain ones

These are libraries for which I didn't find evidence as to their openness.  I don't think any of these is actually open to the public; it's just that they aren't well enough documented online to show that they aren't.

Documented at the owner's website

• NBBJ is a company that works in "architecture, planning and design".  It has offices in Hong Kong, London, Pune and Shanghai, plus eight American cities, and ostentatiously resists identifying itself with any one of those places, but according to Wikipedia was founded and has made its biggest splash here.  It's the company behind, at least, the Amazon Spheres and Amazon Day 1, as well as the Gates Foundation campus.  At its home page, a movie plays whose main theme is one of several slogans shown:  "Why can't cities be the greenest places on earth?"  With all that to say, it's unsurprising that the company doesn't have room at its website for its library.  The evidence that the library exists is, anyway, almost entirely a result of a book the librarian wrote, which got a fair amount of attention when it came out a decade ago.  (She was documented as still at NBBJ in April by a page listing her as a "guest faculty member" at the UW Information School, but that page is now gone.)  The Internet Archive preserves a press release which NBBJ issued about the book in 2013:  so the library was documented at its owner's website, but isn't now.  The entry at the libraries database actually gives this library's hours, but I still wouldn't bet that it's open to the public.  Anyway, the address at Yale Ave N and John St, 3.82 miles from my house, is three blocks from Cascade Playground's restrooms that I haven't told you about yet, dear Diary.
  
• The Municipal Research and Services Corporation is a private non-profit whose officers and directors are nearly all either local elected officials, or employees of local governments, although the new president is an attorney in private practice instead.  I'm pretty certain none of those officers and directors is there ex officio; this is why I nevertheless see it as private, in contrast to the Puget Sound Regional Council (whose members are governments rather than individuals) and the Washington State Historical Society (several of whose directors are ex officio).  The MRSC's purpose in existence is, well, to offer research and other services to municipal and other local governmental entities; it's more or less a local think tank.  The libraries database says it has a library, and names a librarian, whose titles according to the MRSC website include "public information officer", "information specialist", and "librarian".  The library is also attested at a couple of informational sites:  one draws on an old directory of libraries; the other is a charity guide (and paywalled, I think).  Anyway, the MRSC is at Cedar Ave and 4th St, 4.11 miles, and if it isn't actually open to the public, the wayfarer's best nearby bet for restrooms is probably Seattle Center, not especially close to the north.
• Karr Tuttle Campbell, a law firm headquartered in Seattle, 4.89 miles, has a library attested in its careers page.  The libraries database reports that it has "Limited books".  The person named at the database describes herself at LinkedIn as a "records manager", but a couple of people's resumes include one-year stints as "library technician"s there, and one retiree lists "library manager" as something he did as a paralegal at Karr Tuttle.  Seattle's Municipal Tower, some of whose restrooms are public, is across the street.
  
• Skagit County has a Public Hospital District No. 1, with seven elected commissioners.  This commission runs Skagit Regional Health, which has a vast number of locations in Skagit, Island and Snohomish counties.  At their flagship hospital, 51.37 miles, the libraries database says they have an "Electronic Library".  Their page documenting graduate medical education facilities elaborates a bit:  those facilities include "Library, including 8 computer workstations".  Now, while I doubt those computers are open to the public, Skagit Regional Health has several buildings nearby, and perhaps one of those would let someone seeking a restroom in.  If not, the Mount Vernon City Library is some ways west on the other side of I-5, but Mount Vernon's Kiwanis Park, three blocks east, has restrooms.  Dear Diary, I'm not sure I shouldn't have counted this as a governmental library, but since I didn't, I anyway have to cover it here.  (This is also true of more examples ahead.)
  

Documented on the Web

• Shannon & Wilson call themselves "geotechnical & environmental consultants".  (They like ampersands!)  They're headquartered in Fremont, 2.08 miles; their local projects are mostly public works that are sort of controversial, such as the 520 bridge & the Alaskan Way tunnel.  Their entry in the libraries database names a staffer, but she's surprisingly obscure; the evidence that they have a library, outside the database, is at a site I've mostly been ignoring while working on this part, & a good thing too, because it turns out to have a really tight registration wall:  one GlassDoor review of Shannon & Wilson as a workplace mentions the library (praising it).  Anyway, they're two long blocks with usually crowded sidewalks from the Fremont branch of the Seattle Public Library; Ross Park, Wallingford Playfield, & Gas Works Park are each rather farther, but their restrooms keep longer hours (though Ross's aren't open in winter).
• Seattle Children's Hospital has a Library and Information Commons that is currently mentioned at a bunch of sites because it's advertising a job.  The physical space, according to the libraries database, is in the main hospital building on Sand Point, 2.25 miles, but the job is at their downtown research centre, 4.11 miles.  Anyway, the libraries database lists four staffers, rather more than for most of these libraries, making turnover less surprising.  And as your older pages, dear Diary, amply attest, restroom seekers near the main hospital should head, depending which side of Sand Point they're on and how energetic they're feeling, either to Burke-Gilman Playground Park (north and west), or to Laurelhurst Playfield (south and east and UP).  Or, um, to University Place shopping mall (along 45th).  From the location downtown, homeless restroom seeekers should head for the Urban Rest Stop, which is just next door, but others should go to the Convention Center, southeast, if they're desperate, or to Cascade Playground, north, if they aren't, both a fair way away.
  
• Miller Nash, a law firm headquartered in Portland, has its number 2 office in Seattle, in an unusual place for major law offices here, on Pier 70, at Alaskan Way and Broad St, 4.38 miles.  That this office has its own library, as opposed to just relying on the headquarters' one, is attested by the LinkedIn page of a free-lance law library technician, as well as by the libraries database.  At that location, for about half the year, the nearest quasi-public restrooms are those in the pavilion at Olympic Sculpture Park, but failing them, it's a long hike from there northeast to Seattle Center.
  
• Lane Powell, a law firm headquartered in Seattle, 4.48 miles, obviously has a library:  Seattle University's law library worked with Lane Powell's in 2017, and the Lane Powell library belongs to a professional organisation.  However, at their website, the library's boss identifies as a librarian, but isn't explicitly confirmed to have a library to run.   The office at 5th Ave and Union St is a few blocks from both Seattle's Central Library and Washington's Convention Center.
• Foster Garvey is the result of a law firm merger in 2019.  Both previous law firms, Foster Pepper and Garvey Schubert Barer, were headquartered here, and both are represented in the libraries database.  Foster Pepper was larger; Garvey Schubert Barer had offices in distant places.  GSB had had a library director who, rumour claims, also had a law degree, Jill Allyn, but she'd retired in 2015 (4 page PDF), and the library database doesn't list any library staff as of its last update.  Some sites claim Allyn has returned to Foster Garvey, but I suspect they made that up.  Allyn had written about building trouble for GSB.  Anyway, in the upshot, Foster Garvey is in Foster Pepper's old space at 3rd Ave and Seneca St, 4.75 miles, two blocks from Seattle's Central Library, has Foster Pepper's librarian, and Foster Pepper's domain name.
• So this is where Garvey Schubert Barer's library, at 2nd Ave and Seneca St, 4.8 miles, would be if it still existed as a separate entity.
  
• Aerojet Rocketdyne, a spaceflight engine firm with a cool domain name and a branch in Redmond, 8.17 miles, does not obviously have a library here (there's undoubtedly one at the California headquarters), but the librarian known to the Washington libraries database as responsible for the Aerojet Rocketdyne Technical Library has a LinkedIn profile in which he indeed identifies himself as a librarian.  (And says he's been there since before local company Rocket Research got bought out!)  At the libraries database his library's hours are given, and there's nothing saying it isn't open to the public, but, well...  Anyway, the Redmond location is closest, in terms of more or less public restrooms, to Lake Washington Technical College, but you can't get there from there.  The nearest park, the City of Redmond's Sammamish Valley Park, is under construction.  But King County's Sixty Acres Park, less than a mile northeast of Aerojet Rocketdyne, doesn't have its own Web page, but is reputed to have restrooms.
• Skagit County also has a Public Hospital District No. 2, with five elected commissioners.  This commission runs Island Health, with locations in Anacortes and one on, um, Orcas Island.  As of the libraries database's last update, Island Health's flagship hospital in Anacortes, 58.65 miles, had a library open fifteen hours a week, 9 A.M. to 2 P.M. Wednesdays through Fridays.  The "library assistant" named at the database is on LinkedIn, has held that job for decades, and that's basically all I know about this library.  I have no idea whether the many medical buildings near there include any that admit public restroom hunters.  The closest actually public restrooms are probably those at the City of Anacortes's Storvik Park, a fair hike south, which close really early during whatever Anacortes defines "winter" as; the Anacortes City Library is even farther north, but there's a Starbucks on the way there.
  

Documented only at the libraries database

• King County also has a Public Hospital District No. 2, with seven elected commissioners.  This commission runs EvergreenHealth, with a bunch of King County locations as well as a partnership with Snohomish County Public Hospital District No. 1.  As of the libraries database's last update, EvergreenHealth's flagship hospital in Kirkland, 7.48 miles, had a library open four and one half hours per week, Wednesday mornings, the librarian working remotely the rest of the time.  Now, this hospital is where the first COVID-19 deaths in the United States were reported, and it's easy to read this entry in the database as a COVID-aware one, unlike most of its entries.  But the librarian named is very poorly documented; she posted in 2016 to a medical librarians' mailing list, but that's about all I can find.  So I know they had a librarian in 2016, and I know at some time she was there one day per week, but that's about it.  Not very far south, the City of Kirkland's Totem Lake Park has explicitly year-round restrooms.
• Parametrix is a company in "engineering, planning, environmental sciences" (originally a sewer company, but now in many lines of business), headquartered in Puyallup, 35.67 miles.  As of the libraries database's last update, it had a library there, with two named staffers.  As of today, both those staffers (Manager and Specialist) have moved on, and if they've been replaced, nobody's saying so, so as with EvergreenHealth, I don't strictly speaking know that the library still exists.  The location is more or less adjacent to Pierce College's Puyallup campus, whose library is currently open four days per week, and may not be open at all for a while after August 24; it's considerably farther from the part of the City of Puyallup's Bradley Lake Park that has the restrooms.
  

The probably closed ones

Documented at the owner's website

• The Mountaineers' Seattle branch library, at their Magnuson Park building, 3.03 miles from my house, and not especially near Magnuson Park's public restrooms.  The direct evidence that this library isn't open is at the Olympia branch's library page, which opens with this statement:  "The library is open! Thanks to our hard-working library volunteers, the Olympia Branch maintains the only operating library in the club."  I doubt the Seattle branch would put up with that if they'd finally gotten theirs off the ground.   That said, evidence that the Seattle branch has a library is, for example, in this 2014 update, which offers a generous supply of links to catalogues, digitised stuff, and so forth, many of which still work.  (The only exception I found, tellingly, is to archive.mountaineers.org, which no longer seems to exist.)  The libraries database listing already showed they were ambitious.  I think the ambition is probably why the Olympia branch is still able to boast as it does.
• Virginia Mason Medical Center has a library, 4.5 miles, at the southwest end of the complex, near 9th Ave and Seneca St.  The location is a few blocks northwest of the Frye Art Museum and a few blocks southeast of the Convention Center, not ideal for someone needing a restroom but not too bad.  This page indicates that it still has the same librarians as are listed at the libraries database, and that it does, after all, have a website, but that website isn't open to the public, like the library itself, which the database notes is "Closed to the public".  The librarians named in the page cited are on LinkedIn, but I don't find the other kinds of stuff other libraries in this part are documented by.
  
• Microsoft has a library; according to the libraries database it's in building 92 on their Redmond campus, 9.09 miles.  The ascription to building 92 is confirmed by a 2009 blog post apparently by a Microsoft employee in the Philippines, with lots of photos.  The UW student chapter of the SLA toured it in 2016 and noted that it has physical branches in China, India and the UK, though not, as the 2009 blogger complained, the Philippines.  Building 92 famously also holds the Microsoft Visitor Center and the Microsoft Company Store.  These, unlike the library, are open to the public (the store only partly so), and have their own public Web page.  I visited in April, fixated on photographing the library door, which for some reason I assumed would have a sign on it saying "not open to the public".  Unlike then, the Visitor Center and Store are apparently now actually open.  That trip in April was something else. 
  
  One of those signs said to call security for access, so I did.  The security person who answered was very hard to hear on the phone provided, but I eventually got the gist:  that I wasn't going to get in, even though, at that time, the Store was reputedly already open again.  This was just the beginning of my experience with the hermetic sealing of Microsoft, however.  As I walked back to the bus stop, I was passed by several of those Microsoft Connector buses I'd often seen on Seattle streets, and it suddenly dawned on me that the difficulty of reaching Microsoft's Redmond campus via public transit is, for Microsoft, not a bug but a feature.  I also passed a lot of signs saying visitors should get parking permits at the visitor center - which, of course, was closed.  I found and noted a phone number for Microsoft Security, figuring I could call them when I got home and get a better connection.  Weirdly, though, their phone number wouldn't accept my call.  So I wrote to Microsoft's PR company, which sent me a phone number and e-mail address for the Visitor Center.  Surprise!  That phone number also rejected my call, and of course my e-mail was never answered.  I mean, really.  Who ever heard of a company whose publicly disclosed phone numbers don't actually accept phone calls from the public?  Now, I'd visited Microsoft before the pandemic (I'd been recruited for a study, although that study turned out not to want a homeless participant), so I knew it hadn't always been that way.  But if I'd thought the University of Washington showed a very cold face to the public during the lockdowns, well, that was warm as could be compared to this.  Anyway, the documentation of this library in the publicly accessible part of Microsoft's website includes a Word document (14 pages) describing a study of how a group at Microsoft acquired information for a project - not, in that case, much from that library.
  
  

Documented on the Web

• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is listed in the libraries database as having a library that is closed to the public, and whose listed staff is Ashley Farley.  Ms. Farley is copiously documented online, including one place where her job description is specifically said to include "supporting the strategic and operational aspects of the foundation's library".  However, most mentions of her online have to do with her avowed "passion for open access", which makes the library's physical closure to the public a wee bit harder to fathom.  The libraries database certainly gives a wrong zip code for the library's address, and I'm guessing it's entirely wrong, not 500 5th Ave, 98102 as the database says, but 500 5th Ave N, 98109, which is the foundation's main address.  If that's so, it's 3.7 miles, and across the street from Seattle Center, which has public restrooms (still a rather long walk from the foundation) about which I haven't yet told you, dear Diary.
• The Seattle Times has a library.  The national SLA had its convention in Seattle in 2008, and its News Division toured the newspaper, including but not limited to its library (15-page PDF; the writer's account of convention week is on four of those pages, but the part about the tour is almost all on page 1).  That tour was of an old location, 3.85 miles; the current one, 3.9 miles, is on Denny between Terry and Boren, and is just four blocks from Cascade Playground's restrooms.  Most other references to this library online are in photo credits.  The libraries database record says not only "The Seattle Times library is not open to the public" but also "Not open to public for research assistance".
  
• Another Seattle non-profit has been doing the kind of public health-related work the Gates Foundation famously funds for rather longer than the foundation has been in business.  About half of its offices are in Africa, but its headquarters are here.  This organisation used to be called Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, but in 2014 decided its acronym, PATH, was a better (or at least less searchable) name.  The libraries database says PATH's library is "Generally not open to the public" rather than entirely not open, but given that the pandemic is still going on, I dare say it isn't open to restroom seekers today.  UW's SLA chapter toured this library in 2008, but at an old location; the move to the current one is documented in this 2010 article, with photos.  That location, 3.99 miles, is right near Westlake and Denny, and if there's a public restroom within several blocks of it, I sure don't know where.
• Perkins Coie's Seattle headquarters has a library documented in the libraries database, which says it's "Not open to the public", and in such usual places as LinkedIn and a job ad, plus one really unusual one:  it recycled a bunch of old law books into a much-admired reference desk.  It's much further from Seattle's Central Library than most downtown law firms, but that's still only two blocks away, 4.72 miles, in the gigantic building between 2nd and 3rd Avenues and Seneca and University Streets, so not a big deal to the restroom seeker downtown.
  
• The Davis Wright Tremaine law firm, also headquartered here, is listed in the libraries database as having a library that is closed to the public.  Multiple staffers are attested online as having jobs related to that library, notably the (current) past president of Law Libraries Of Puget Sound.  At 4.79 miles, it's across the street from Seattle's Central Library, so not much of a loss to the wanderer.
• The K&L Gates law firm's Seattle office is listed in the libraries database with no indication that the library is closed to the public.  And in fact, my only evidence that it actually is closed to the public is thanks to a public visit.  In 2010, an organisation of students of library science in general (not SLA) toured it, and the blog post four months later about that tour says "Librarians who work in a law firm library have a specific clientèle consisting mostly of the firm's lawyers." - specifically contrasting it with "a public or academic library" with "a wide variety of patrons".  That said, two things:  1) There definitely is still a library at the Seattle office - its manager is on LinkedIn, and although I haven't seen that page yet, Google's snippet shows he's still here.  Also, they advertised a job here with the National Urban League recently, and this year one of the staffers here gave a virtual talk to Chicago law librarians.  (I have an old college friend who's a Chicago law librarian, dear Diary; I wonder whether she was there.)  And 2) Someone may object that just the likelihood that it was closed to the public in 2010 doesn't guarantee that it's closed to the public now.  Well, I have a bridge I'm selling too.  Anyway, it's also across the street from Seattle's Central Library, 4.83 miles, so again, not an issue for the desperate seeker of a downtown restroom.
  

Documented only at the libraries database

• The libraries database reports Fox Rothschild's Seattle location to have a library, 4.78 miles, emphatically not open to the public, not that I'd expect such openness anyway.  The firm is headquartered in Philadelphia, and I don't find any clear attestations of the Seattle location's library elsewhere online, though the firm as a whole certainly has at least one library.  As you might guess from its distance from my house, dear Diary, this building, too, is across the street from Seattle's Central Library, so... 
• APA - The Engineered Wood Assocation is more or less a research center for the industry that, among other things, makes plywood.  (At the same address, the Engineered Wood Technology Association is a more conventional trade group.)  The address is in western Tacoma, near Tacoma Community College, 30.85 miles.  I'd assume TCC has restrooms open to the public, but am concerned that its library is closed for the summer.  It's much farther to other public restrooms:  the Swasey branch of the Tacoma Public Library is about a mile to the north, or for someone who has more time (or is visiting on a day Tacoma Public Library isn't open, such as today), Titlow Beach is somewhat further away, but perhaps the most enjoyable Tacoma park I visited last summer. 
  
  
  
  It has not only restrooms but also (what's much rarer in Tacoma parks) water fountains.  Anyway, APA has a "resource library" of which it's very proud, and which is entirely online.  I'm not entirely convinced that it also has a physical library, but if it does, the libraries database is clear that that library isn't open to the public:  "We are a private library for industry use."
  
• The Olympian, the daily newspaper of the city by the same name, 51.16 miles, is not especially close to the state capitol, but rather in a neighborhood some ways east of there that looks, on Google Maps, rather downtownish.  For example, the new capitol campus branch of the Timberland Regional Library is nowhere near it, but the main Olympia branch is two blocks away.  Which is a good thing, because the library database says the newspaper's library is closed to the public.  So someone who wanders downtown Olympia should probably not count on finding restrooms there.  I have no other information about this library; false positives are a big problem - Google thinks I want all the newspaper's stories about other libraries - and the libraries database names no staffers.

The interloper

The Burke Museum is an interloper in the list of "special" libraries the libraries database provides in two ways.  First, it's either governmental (as the Washington State Museum) or academic (as run by the University of Washington's Board of Regents); see Wikipedia on this.  Second and more importantly, though, it isn't actually a library.  It's a bona fide museum, and is in the libraries database as such, presumably because museums and libraries have a lot in common.  So for example, where the database asks about special collections, the entry brags about the Burke's objects, not its books.  And the staffer listed is its registrar (though another of her titles is archivist).

So since it isn't a library, and although it probably does actually contain a library somewhere, isn't so listed in the database, I'm also not going to cover it when I get to the academic libraries this autumn.  Therefore I'll note now that it's a freaking expensive place to visit just to go to the restroom.  (Although in fairness it's free to people on, for example, food stamps.)  It's also closed Mondays, and not open very long hours the rest of the week.  In normal times I'd tell the restroom seeker to go across the lane to the Law School, but that building has historically only been open to the public during library hours for the public (which used to be amazingly long), and the library is still closed to the public, and for all I know may always be in future.  In general, what I've seen this summer on the UW campus is that most of the buildings I relied upon when I spent most of my waking hours there are now keeping shorter hours - not just the libraries' summer hours, but also, for example, the HUB (still essentially closed to casual visitors, near as I can tell) and Savery Hall.  I think I know of one building I used to rely on that's keeping something like its pre-pandemic hours, but I'm not sure (haven't had occasion to try it), and it isn't all that close to the Burke, nor, as I recall, open that late.  So my general advice is that it's a bad idea to eat or drink, this summer, on a day when one will have to be on the UW campus after 7 P.M., or on a weekend.  And in October I'll update that.

I've taken so long to wade through these libraries that it's no longer even summer term at many local colleges, so it doesn't make sense to cover the academic libraries now.  I expect in October to update my main work - not all this extra stuff, but libraries that actually might matter to homeless people in Seattle, mainly but not exclusively Seattle Public Library.  That time, I plan to start with the full coverage of academic libraries in western Washington that I didn't get to this time. 

Anyway, as "probably does contain a library somewhere" not far above suggests, there isn't really an authoritative list of private libraries in western Washington.  I mean, I'm pretty sure my own library isn't on any such list, for starters, but even if we define "library" as, say, organised and staffed (even if by volunteers), thus excluding most individuals' libraries, I've found three (151 page PDF) other (190 page PDF) lists (not a PDF) in the course of researching this part, and decided to see what they have to say.  But I'm not sure how long that'll take me, especially considering that I'm probably a few days away from starting a job, which may be in time to salvage my finances.  So without making this part any horrendously longer, I'll wish you, dear Diary, happy days and nights until we meet again.