Academic Library Hours One Year Later, part I: Public universities

Dear Diary,

This page should really have been the last several parts of "Library Hours Six Months Later", about academic libraries; but when I fell behind on the private non-academic libraries, I had to wait until it was a full year later before I could rely on getting the academic libraries' regular hours.

I've consulted six sources to build a list of academic libraries in western Washington.  Two actually list libraries:

1. the Washington State Library's database of Washington libraries
2. and private library lister American Library Directory.

Four list academic institutions, leaving it to me to figure out whether they have libraries, how many, and so forth:

3. a footer used by English Wikipedia
4. a Google search for Washington seminaries, which I finally realised were very poorly represented in the first two lists I'd consulted (Washington State Library and Wikipedia)
   
5. further in that direction Seminaries and Bible Colleges 
6. and finally, found through the seminary search, Washington Student Achievement Council, which turns out to regulate post-secondary education in this state.  (Near as I can tell, this is a mildly distinctive thing about Washington as a state.  But it's very convenient for me.)

I should mention that I did, specifically, look for non-Christian institutions, but there aren't many of these in western Washington at the adult academic level this page concerns.  (As before, I'm trying hard not to suggest that homeless people look for restrooms in grade schools.)  I didn't find any Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist colleges around here, but source 6 lists one Wiccan one.

Traditionally, there've been four levels of degrees in the US, three of which defined names for the schools that granted them.  The levels are doctor, master, bachelor and associate.  A school that granted doctorates (and usually also master's and bachelor's degrees) was a university.  One that granted bachelor's degrees, but nothing higher (and usually didn't grant associate's degrees), was a college.  And one that granted only associate's degrees was a community college.

Nowadays, things are more complicated.  Many colleges have added a few master's or even doctoral programs, and most community colleges have added a few bachelor's programs.  Sometimes such schools change their names in recognition of this change; sometimes they don't.

At this stage, I've researched all the libraries from sources 1, 3 and 4, finding 59 libraries in public institutions, plus four public campuses that I don't think have libraries.  Source 6 adds four more public campuses that probably don't have libraries.  Sources 1, 3 and 4 also produced 19 libraries in private institutions, plus three institutions, one from each source, that have ceased operating, and one that I don't think has a physical library.  Sources 2, 5 and 6 add two private libraries and 47 private institutions, many of which latter probably don't have physical libraries of their own.

Public schools and private ones broke down very differently.  The minority of private ones in sources 1, 3 and 4 mostly either grant doctorates or at least master's degrees; only two stop with bachelor's degrees.  Those from sources 2, 5 and 6 consist mostly of two groups:  seminaries, nearly all of which offer doctorates of divinity, and out of state schools with western Washington branches, usually offering nothing higher here than a bachelor's degree.  I expect to find that a few of each of those two groups, and most of the few that fall into neither group, have libraries.

Public schools, however?  If I divide them doctor's and master's versus bachelor's and associate's, then the campuses that grant master's or doctoral degrees all belong to traditional universities or colleges, and most of the rest belong to traditional community colleges.  So this first part of this series is about the western Washington libraries of what I'm calling "public universities", meaning schools that receive at least some direct support from the state of Washington, and have campuses in western Washington where they offer at least some master's or doctoral degrees.

The University of Washington dominates this list, but actually, all six public universities (by this definition) in Washington - UW, Washington State University, Evergreen State College, Western Washington University, Central Washington University, and Eastern Washington University - are here somewhere.

Details:

• I'm going, as before, in order according to the distance from my house computed (this time only mostly) by this distance calculator.
• I'm dividing libraries into ones treated in detail and ones listed among "the rest" by whether they're open to the public in any way, including by appointment.
• I'm also noting for each library whether and on what terms it offers library cards to the public, 
• and to what extent its rules resemble those for public libraries that I've identified as specifically problematic for the homeless.  (Staffers of academic libraries have the freedom to address any actual problematic behaviour by homeless people, under such broad rules as those against disturbing other patrons or misusing library property, which most of these libraries have; what I'm interested in here is the extent to which these libraries have found it worthwhile to write policies more or less specific to homeless people.)  In relation to the UW, specifically, I note below a rule also present at the Seattle Public Library which I didn't explore in that older page, against leaving belongings unattended.  This rule was the basis for several reprimands to me from SPL staffers; nobody at UW ever mentioned it to me.
  
• Finally, for multi-building campuses, I'm also looking into student unions and similar buildings, mainly as places to eat meals when visiting in rainy or cold weather.
  

University of Washington, Seattle

UW has a famous and fairly easy to find plaza called Red Square after the bricks that floor it.  Two of its main libraries - Suzzallo Library and Odegaard Undergraduate Library - are on Red Square; most others are reasonably close. The campus map has a built in widget that can be used to show which buildings have libraries.  More usefully, Suzzallo Library, at least, offers a handout with a clearer map:

However, that's out of date, omitting the newest library (which is closed to the public, so listed nearer the end of this part).

I see two buildings on the UW's Seattle campus as performing the relevant functions of student union buildings:  the Husky Union Building, or HUB, and the South Campus Center, or SCC.

The HUB is completely back to its pre-pandemic hours.  Now, my unreliable memory claims that I worried, when I first moved to the U-District in 2014, that the HUB's policies barred me.  This may be true, but such policies can't be found at the then-website.  For example, as late as March 2018 they had something approximating a site map, and nothing it lists is anything like a building use policy.  However, the Internet Archive first preserved in May 2020 a policy which claims to have been adopted, and probably was in fact adopted, in October 2018.  (This adoption was probably known to me at the time, and may well be the basis for my unreliable memory.)

Regardless, the HUB is now loudly advertising an amended version of this policy dated October 2021.  The most obvious way  the policy was amended was a considerable elaboration of the enforcement section.  This policy fairly explicitly demands that visitors without UW affiliations have a "business purpose" in the building, and without it, may be asked to leave.  However, at this time, the demand is included in the enforcement section of the policy.  In other words, a member of the general public who follows the rules may be safe, but not if he or she breaks them.  Both versions of the rules include such things I've noted as harder for homeless people to obey as a combined camping and sleeping rule (which notes specifically that "sleeping" is considered to be a nap longer than an hour, and Talmudically defines "camping"), a rule about unattended personal property, and a grooming rule.  But I wouldn't want to say without hesitation that anyone, homeless, housed, or travelling, studying all day in, say, Allen Library, could safely go to the HUB to eat a bag lunch and drink from the building's water fountains, or to relax after Allen Library's earlier closing time.

I haven't yet reached the South Campus Center in my survey of UW buildings, it isn't nearly so well documented online, and the only library presently open to the public for which it's closer than the HUB (the Built Environments Library), it's only barely closer.  So I'll defer discussing it.

The Internet Archive has captured very little of the UW Libraries' hours information in reliable-looking ways since 2015.  Seriously.  The libraries offer a grid of their hours; each library's page links to the current week's hours; none of that is reliably retained by the Archive.  My best guess is that both rely on a specific means of delivering information to Web pages, on capturing which means the Archive places a low priority.

The distance calculator I use had several problems with the UW's main campus, not least because UW treats many of the buildings' street addresses as state secrets, so while writing about that campus, I had to get out a map and a measuring tape to get approximate distances for ten of the libraries there.  But eventually the distance calculator managed, with the help of addresses given on or near the buildings themselves, ones from the King County Parcel Viewer, and building names known to the distance calculator, to get eight of them correctly measured, so I only have to use two of my estimates.  Anyway, this is why I give street addresses for each library on UW's Seattle campus.

UW offers library cards for a fee, payable in any of three ways:  directly to the libraries, to the Friends of the UW Libraries,  or to the UW Alumni Association.  (That last may require that one actually be an alumnus; I'm not rich enough right now to find out.  It's half the price of the other two ways, though.)  The UW Libraries Code of Conduct includes a hygiene rule, with enforcement of which I interacted on two occasions while I was homeless.  It also includes that rule I'd forgotten against leaving personal possessions unattended.  I suspect this rule, in the UW's case, is mainly meant as protection in case someone's stuff gets stolen and they get the bright idea of suing.

Gallagher Law Library

This is one of three libraries at UW's Seattle campus that in the 2021-2022 academic year were closed to the public.  I recently noticed something else these three libraries have in common:  All opened, before the pandemic, 24 hours to qualified people.  As a result, they all had to engage in rituals to clear unqualified people out of the building when their more general open hours ended.  So one possible explanation for their closure to the public is that those rituals are labour-intensive, and they just don't have the staff to do that now.

The Gallagher Law Library, 1.35 miles from my house in William H. Gates Hall at 4293 Memorial Way NE, is the first of those three to restore some public hours, and the way it's doing so appears to me to go some way towards confirming this (relatively irenic) hypothesis, at least with regard to this library.  It's now open, though by appointment only, four hours on three weekday afternoons, noon to 4 P.M., "due to staffing issues".  (That quote is from a previous version of the linked page; I don't see it now.)  In February 2020, it was open to the public twenty hours per week, 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. weekdays, so this is 60% of pre-pandemic open hours (and slightly later ones at that, better for grade school students).

Appointments really are required, because Gates Hall is closed to the public, and can't be made on the spur of the moment:

So pleading bodily needs on the spur of the moment really won't work.  It turns out there are public restrooms at the Burke Museum not very far away - I used them on Friday the 14th - and both online and over the phone when I called the number on the Law Library poster that day, the criterion of a legal research need was emphasised.  Also, the building is closed not only to the general public, but to people outside the "UW Law community", probably meaning most undergraduate students, graduate students not in Law, and similarly for faculty and staff; that was actually the thing I'd called primarily to ascertain.

I'd first tried writing to the Law School's PR person.  She didn't answer that question, but did inform me that the library would be opening up Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as Fridays (which was how they'd started, this quarter), starting this week.  I forgot to check this when I was on campus today, but am not sure I'd have seen a difference from just walking by the building; in any event, the change is documented here.

I've already, dear Diary, told you the story of how the Law Library's approach to public visitors had changed since I came to live in North Seattle, while homeless, in autumn 2014.  The Internet Archive's first capture of its hours, from September 2015, shows the hours I remember from when I used to spend time there:  77 hours per week, opening at 8 A.M. weekdays, 11 A.M. Sundays, and closing at 11 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays and Sundays.  By that standard, the current twelve hours open to the public are 16%.

The Law Library has long presented itself as not part of the UW Libraries system.  It was the only UW Seattle library to offer computers with unfiltered Internet access for public use, all the way back to 2006 when I came to Seattle, and it also offered free borrower's cards to the public, specific to its holdings.  (I used both of these things in my career as a tax preparer, before I became homeless here.)  However, it got rid of those (admittedly ageing) computers years ago, and while as recently as March 2019 it still had its own borrower's cards, it now directs would-be borrowers to the UW Libraries page.  Its URL is still unlike those of the more specifically UW Libraries branches, but the distinction matters much less to visitors than it used to.

Foster Business Library

The Foster Business Library, 1.44 miles in PACCAR Hall at 4295 East Stevens Way NE, is currently open 62 hours per week, opening at 10 A.M. weekdays, 1 P.M. Sundays, and closing 10 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays, and 8 P.M. Sundays.  The Internet Archive's last capture of regular quarter hours is again for Spring 2015, when it was open 83 hours per week, opening at 8 A.M. weekdays, noon Saturdays, and 1 P.M. Sundays, and closing at 11 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 10 P.M. Sundays.  So it's back to 75% of that schedule.

This library is ambiguously open to the public:  one has to go through another building to reach it (it's officially part of PACCAR Hall, yes, but actually it protrudes from that building under the courtyard outside), and that building claims not to be open to the public.

 

However, the building can in fact be entered, and I was able to walk through it today, moderately smelly and with three satchels, go to the library, establish that they still have two "guest research stations" (heavily filtered public-access computers):

And I was able to find the book I wanted to consult nearly eleven years ago now, before my last pre-homelessness job, as "quality control supervisor" for a Libery Tax Service franchise:

(At the time Foster was undergoing renovation, and I didn't see fit to buy a library card just so I could page that book, or rather pamphlet.  I regretted that decision by tax season's end.)

I will have more to tell you, dear Diary, about UW's mysterious practises re banning visitors in a separate page today or tomorrow.

Drama Library

UW's Drama Library, 1.45 miles in Hutchinson Hall at 4276 East Stevens Way NE, is currently open 35 hours per week, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. weekdays.  The Internet Archive's last capture of its regular quarter hours is for Spring 2015; at that time, it was open 52 hours per week, opening at 9 P.M. weekdays and at 1 P.M. Sundays, closing at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays and at 5 P.M. Fridays and Sundays.  So it's now at 67% of one pre-pandemic schedule.

Art Library

UW's Art Library in the Art Building at 1915 Chelan Lane NE, which I estimate is 1.48 miles, is now open 35 hours per week, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. weekdays.  In Spring 2015 it was open 61 hours per week, opening at 8 A.M. weekdays, 1 P.M. weekends, and closing at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays through Sundays.  So it's 57% back to that schedule.

Built Environments Library

UW's library for future architects, urban planners, and such is 1.58 miles, in Gould Hall at 3950 University Way NE.  I recently searched the UW Libraries catalogue for works about homelessness in Seattle; I was really looking for a particular book about the predecessors of the "old homeless", especially the hoboes.  I'm hoping it has information about restrooms in downtown Seattle in the early 20th century.  I still haven't found that book, which I originally skimmed for "Stealing from the Homeless" (all my bibliography for which is lost with my previous laptop).  But it turns out all UW's books on Seattle homelessness are in one of two places.  The majority are in Special Collections in Suzzallo, and near as I can tell still available only by appointment.  But a pleasingly large minority are on the regular shelves of this library, as if urban planners should actually think about homelessness as ordinarily relevant to their work.

Anyway.  The library is now open the same 35 hours as the Art Library, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. weekdays.  In spring 2015 it was open 65 hours per week, the same schedule as the Art Library then too except that it closed at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays.  So it's 54% back.

Music Library

The Music Library, 1.59 miles in the Music Building at 2034 Skagit Lane NE, is again open 35 hours per week, and had a similar schedule to the last two also in spring 2015 - same as the Art Library except open until 6 P.M. Sundays.  Which means those 35 hours represent 56% re-opening.

Suzzallo and Allen Libraries

This library is presented as occupying two buildings, but was actually built in four different decades.  The results are joined together such that on several floors one can not only walk from one end of Suzzallo to the other end of Allen, but roll a cart or wheelchair the whole way too.  I'm pretty sure this is UW's largest library property, even though I've never visited several of the others; it holds most of the nooks and crannies I used to isolate myself while homeless and smelly.  (I also found useful hiding places in East Asia; not so well in Music, Odegaard, or Health Sciences.)  Suzzallo and Allen Libraries are 1.62 miles, but I'm not sure they've ever had plausible street addresses; the one they sometimes give out is 4000 15th Ave NE, but the ones in the parcel viewer are 1840 NE Grant Lane (Suzzallo) and 1900 NE Grant Lane (Allen).

These libraries are currently open 59 hours per week, opening at 9 A.M. weekdays and 1 P.M. Sundays, closing at 8 P.M. Sundays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays.  This is the first library listed in this part, and the only one currently open to the public, which I tracked in my libraries spreadsheet while homeless (version I'm using, CSV or ODS), up to the lockdown.  It had, up to the lockdown, the same hours it had in spring 2015, 81.5 hours per week:  opening at 7:30 A.M. weekdays, 1 P.M. weekends, and closing at 10 P.M. Sundays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays and 5 P.M. Saturdays.  So Suzzallo-Allen has re-opened to 72% of its pre-pandemic hours.

Mathematics Research Library

And yet again:  The Mathematics Research Library, 1.66 miles in Padelford Hall at 4110 East Stevens Way NE, is now open those same 35 hours.  However, in spring 2015 it was only open 48 hours per week, opening at 9 A.M. weekdays and 1 P.M. Sundays, closing at 6 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays and 5 P.M. Fridays and Sundays.  So it's 73% re-opened.

Engineering Library

UW's Engineering Library, in its own building at 3914 East Stevens Way NE, 1.78 miles, is currently open 40 hours per week, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. weekdays.  In spring 2015, it was open 80 hours per week, the same schedule as Suzzallo except that it opened at 8 A.M. weekdays and noon Saturdays.  So it's exactly 50% back, the lowest percentage so far.

Elisabeth C. Miller Library

This horticultural library, way off in the East Campus, 2.12 miles in Merrill Hall at 3501 NE 41st St, is another library, like the Gallagher Law Library and the Health Sciences Library, whose home URL doesn't follow the standard UW Libraries structure.  Unlike those, the Miller Library still presents a different face to the public.  Those libraries had public-use computers that weren't heavily filtered, but neither still does.  It's been a very long time since I visited Miller Library - not only before I was homeless, but when I was pretty new in Seattle - but I remember it as a cramped place where nobody can reasonably stay at a computer very long.  However, the 2016 hours page cited below says they "have 4 unrestricted computers available for public use"; that said, I don't know that they're still there.  Gallagher also had its own free library cards, but no longer does.  Miller Library still has its own free library cards.  Oh, and by the way, Gallagher and Health Sciences are now more or less closed to the public, but Miller isn't.

Miller Library is currently open 46 hours per week, open noon to 8 P.M. Mondays, 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Tuesdays through Fridays, and 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. Saturdays.  The Internet Archive's last useful capture of its hours is from May 2016, and shows it open 49 hours per week, opening at 9 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, and closing at 8 P.M. Mondays, 5 P.M. Tuesdays through Fridays, and 3 P.M. Saturdays.  So it's re-opened 94%, which makes it the undisputed champion among the libraries on UW's Seattle campus, as well as the only one which hasn't cut any evening hours.

University of Washington, Bothell

The Campus Library in question here is that of both UW-Bothell and Cascadia College, 7.40 miles.  It's currently open 80 hours per week, opening at 8 A.M. weekdays, 10 A.M. Saturdays and 1 P.M. Sundays, and closing at 10 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays, 5 P.M. Saturdays and 8 P.M. Sundays.  The Internet Archive chances to have its hours for Spring 2017, at which time it was open 86 hours per week, opening at 7 A.M. weekdays, 9 A.M. Saturdays and noon Sundays, and closing at 10 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 8 P.M. Sundays.  So it's re-opened as compared to those hours 93%, almost as much as the Elisabeth C. Miller Library.  (That page claims the library's hours for Spring 2018 would be the same, but I'm not relying on that; the Internet Archive's capture is dated June 7, 2017.)

The Activities & Recreation Center (ARC) currently opens weekdays at 8 A.M., closing at 10 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays and 9 P.M. Fridays.  In January 2020 it closed at 11:30 P.M. and 9:30 P.M. respectively.  A Fitness Center within that building has longer hours but is definitely carded.  I got the impression that the ARC is also carded (it says nothing about "visitors", and uses the word "students" every time it refers to people who use the building), and when I called, the person answering the phone said indeed it is, so I'm not sure what to suggest to someone who brings a bag lunch to Bothell on a rainy day.  Campus map (4-page PDF).

The Bothell and Tacoma libraries both use URLs unlike those of the UW Libraries libraries on the Seattle campus, but both offer library cards to the public on the same terms and otherwise refer to UW Libraries policies as normative.  I've never visited the Bothell library, but, from a visit or two to the Tacoma one, I don't remember anything unusual, compared to other UW libraries.

University of Washington, Tacoma

This library's home page doesn't currently link to the usual library-specific hours page, but to the all-libraries grid, according to which the library currently opens at 8:30 A.M. weekdays, closing at 6 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays and 5 P.M. Fridays, for a total of 46.5 hours per week.  Incredibly, however, the Internet Archive preserves a library-specific hours page from January 2020, according to which the library then opened 98 hours per week:  opening at 7 A.M. weekdays, 9 A.M. weekends, and closing at midnight Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 9 P.M. Sundays.  So this library, 30.17 miles, has re-opened 47% of its, for once, documented pre-pandemic hours.  Gosh,dear Diary, I wonder what makes this library so distinctive?  Tacomans and engineers...

Also, this is the only public university library for which I've found a curfew recorded, as was the case pre-pandemic at Seattle University's Lemieux Library and is now the case at several private university libraries nearby.  What I mean by a curfew in this context is that the library cards people who enter it after the stated hour; people without those cards can stay in the library later (this is the difference from, for example, the way UW's Odegaard Undergraduate Library used to kick members of the public out at some hour), but can't re-enter if they leave.  UW-Tacoma's library's curfew was at 9 P.M.  Presumably if and when it returns to staying open that late, this policy will return.

The University Y Student Center's home page says "This facility is open to all currently registered UW Tacoma students and current members of the YMCA of Pierce & Kitsap Counties."  I remember being deeply disappointed when first visiting UW-Tacoma's library that I couldn't find a place to eat a meal indoors, except by spending money I didn't then have at a restaurant.  But the page linked links in turn to something I'm currently trying to build for the Seattle campus, a guide to hours and access levels for the entire Tacoma campus, which says the only door to that Y is open to the public.  Maybe it just doesn't have any places to sit down and eat.  Beats me.

Evergreen State College, Olympia

The Daniel J. Evans Library, 52.18 miles, has a habit that thoroughly appeals to me:  It puts its quarterly hours onto its home page.  So I can tell you, dear Diary, that it's currently open 69.5 hours per week, opening at 8 A.M. weekdays and 11 A.M. Sundays, and closing at 9 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5:30 P.M. Fridays and 7 P.M. Sundays.  Whereas in Winter 2020, it was open 84.75 hours per week, opening at 8 A.M. weekdays, 10:30 A.M. Saturdays and noon Sundays, and closing at 10:45 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6:15 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 7:45 P.M. Sundays.  So this first library in this page with nothing to do with the UW has returned to 82% of its pre-pandemic schedule.

The library offers cards to members of the public, apparently for free.  The policy emphasises addresses, so these cards may not be available to homeless people.  The library's Guide for Civility and Service (3-page .docx document) doesn't specifically list any of the rules I highlighted.

I find Evergreen State College's website very annoyingly uninformative.  It seems obvious from the campus map (2-page PDF) that their nearest equivalent to a student union is the College Activities Building, but if they've revealed its hours anywhere, I can't find them.  Google claimed, when I tried a search, that those hours for a Saturday were 6 A.M. to midnight, which is mind-boggling, but when I called yesterday (that is, a Monday), I was told probably only until 8 P.M.  The website also doesn't reveal whether the building is carded, not that that really seems like Evergreen's style, but the person who answered Evergreen's main line assured me the public can visit that building.

University of Washington, Friday Harbor

The UW's Friday Harbor Library, 67.92 miles, is, according to the grid, open only by appointment.  I don't know whether it was different last summer, although the Internet Archive's July 13, 2022 capture looks exactly like the current page, for whatever that's worth.  Nor do I know whether this is driven by COVID-19.  But this library's hours page didn't list any actual hours in either August 2013 or January 2015, so my guess is that this library has always been appointment-only for the public (and, actually, probably for anyone, even UW students or faculty, not currently working there).  Huh.  Maybe the Law Library used this one as its model.

I'm also unclear on to what extent the Friday Harbor Laboratories are open to the public.  They're moderately isolated, a couple of miles northeast of the town, and it's somewhat difficult for someone to get there accidentally on the way to somewhere else by land.  (Mishaps at sea could more easily do it.)  So it sort of makes sense that they don't have much explicit policy online about visitors.  The campus map shows a dining hall, but it specifically can't "accommodate drop-ins"; I don't think there's anything more student union-like.

Western Washington University, Bellingham

This campus has in common with UW's Seattle campus a Red Square, more actually square than UW's.  The square is in the northern end of campus; the main library is on one of its sides, the music library across High St from the main library, and the Viking Union next to the music library and kitty-corner from the main library.  (Map.)

Viking Union has had very consistent hours, the same in October 2016 and, at least according to the Web, in August 2020 as now:  opening at 7 A.M. weekdays, 9 A.M. Saturdays and 10 A.M. Sundays, closing at 10 P.M. Sundays through Thursdays and 11 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.  I can't find anything explicitly saying that the public is welcome, except a fleeting reference to "guests" on the 2016 page, but I also don't find anything even implying that we aren't.  When I called, I was told there are "public seating areas, for families and such".

Western Libraries offer borrowing privileges on the basis of Bellingham Public Library or Whatcom County Library System cards.  Those two public library systems appear to offer cards for free to most residents of Washington.  So it appears that WWU actually allows most Washingtonians to borrow, and when I called, the person answering agreed.  Western Libraries' Visitor Guidelines doesn't explicitly mention any of the rules I see as specifically relevant to homeless people.

Goltz-Murray Archives Building

WWU's share in this building, which also houses the northwest regional branch of the Washington State Archives, is currently open only by appointment (as the branch was before the pandemic and still is) and only within the hours of 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., excluding noon to 1 P.M., weekdays.  This share is currently reported as two separate units with the same hours, the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies and the University Archives and Records Management.  In April 2019, these were listed as three units in WWU's part of the building.  At that time, Records Management was listed as having the hours 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., the University Archives were reported as appointment only, and the Center was reported as having the hours 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., excluding noon to 1 P.M.  I'm not sure how much of the change is real versus how much is increased accuracy in the Web page, but bottom line, a building just south of WWU's Bellingham campus, 72.98 miles, may have offered public restrooms for a large subset of normal business hours, but definitely currently doesn't.

Main (Haggard-Wilson) Library

WWU's Main Library is in two linked buildings, like the equivalents at UW's Seattle and Tacoma campuses; they're 74.12 miles.  It's currently open 79 hours per week, opening at 8 A.M. weekdays, 10 A.M. Saturdays and noon Sundays, and closing at 9 P.M. Sundays through Thursdays and 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.  In Winter 2017 it was open 96.5 hours per week, opening at 7:30 A.M. weekdays, 10 A.M. Saturdays and noon Sundays, and closing at midnight Sundays through Thursdays and 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.  So it's re-opened 82% of those hours.

Music Library

WWU's Music Library is across the street, northwest from the Main Library.  I don't have a street address for it, but it can't be much farther than the Main Library.  The same pages as I cited above for the Main Library show that it's currently open 45 hours per week, 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. weekdays, while in Winter 2017 it was open the same number of hours, but 8:45 A.M. to 5:45 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, with only Fridays keeping the 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. schedule.

Washington State University, Vancouver

The campus is actually in Salmon Creek, miles north of Vancouver proper, so the Washington State University Vancouver Library is a mere 135.48 miles.  As at Evergreen State College, this library keeps its regular hours on its home page, but in this case, it didn't do so just before the pandemic, so unfortunately I have to go back to Spring 2016 for a comparison.  Anyway, it's now open 65.5 hours per week, opening at 7:30 A.M. weekdays, 1 P.M. Sundays, and closing at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and 7 P.M. Sundays.  In Spring Semester 2016, it was open 79.5 hours per week, opening at 7:30 weekdays and noon weekends, and closing at 10 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 7 P.M. Fridays and 5 P.M. weekends.  So it's re-opened 82% of that earlier schedule.

WSU Vancouver offers library cards to people not affiliated with the university, and it doesn't look to me like there's a geographical limit or a fee.  These cards, however, do not entitle the users to page items from the main library in Pullman.  WSU Vancouver's General Library Regulations don't include anything that looks homeless-specific to me.

WSU Vancouver's buildings apparently don't have public Web pages, so I had to call to find out where members of the public can eat on campus.  Dengerink Administration Building has a cafeteria and seating; Firstenburg Student Commons has seating but no food service; both are open to the public, but I forgot to ask their hours.

The rest of the libraries

• The UW's Odegaard Undergraduate Library, which I estimate to be 1.46 miles from my house in its own building which the King County parcel viewer puts at 4060 George Washington Lane NE, is another library I tracked on my libraries spreadsheet, and whose regular quarter hours the Archive doesn't have after spring 2015.  My spreadsheet says that in early 2020 it was open to the public 73 hours per week, opening at 8 A.M. weekdays and 10 A.M. weekends, and closing at 7 P.M. every day.  I didn't record its hours for people with valid Husky cards, but my best guess is that it was open 140 hours per week, closing from 8 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays to 10 A.M. Saturdays and Sundays.  (I specifically remember being shocked that they'd bother with kicking the public out at 7 P.M. some Friday or Saturday, considering they'd be closing the whole place down an hour later.  Pointing this out to the guard got me nowhere, although, since the only reason I was visiting Odegaard that day was to examine posters visible from the outside and adjacent to the guard station, he let me look for a couple of minutes anyway.)  It's been closed to the public since re-opening began.  I was told when full closure started that it was an "experiment".  I told you last year, dear Diary, that I didn't see how the experiment could have any outcome other than the one it's had, which is that the public remain barred.  (Any reader who doesn't believe me, please do an experiment.  Try doing something an easier way for a year.  If at the end of that year it seems better to go back to doing it the harder way, let me know.)  So I consider its closure to the public this year just confirmation of what I said last year, that I don't expect to see the inside of Odegaard again.  Ah well.  Things aren't perfect for the students either:  Odegaard is currently open only 84 hours per week (60%) even for them.
• The UW's Tateuchi East Asia Library, 1.60 miles, is another library I tracked on my spreadsheet.  It is currently closed due to a renovation which was originally projected to have been completed by now.  Last October, my spreadsheet says it was open 40 hours per week, 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. weekdays.  Before the pandemic it opened at 8 A.M. weekdays, 1 P.M. weekends, and closed at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays through Sundays; this is 61 hours per week, so last year it was 66% back.
• The UW's Li Lu Library, 1.81 miles in the new Health Sciences Education Building at 1607 NE Pacific St, northwesternmost of the medical succession of buildings on the south side of NE Pacific St.  It's an extension of the Health Sciences Library in the next building down the street, and it's started out from getgo closed to the public.
• So the UW's Health Sciences Library, 1.91 miles in the Magnuson Health Sciences Building at 1919 NE Pacific St, is the last in this part of the four I was tracking in my spreadsheet when the lockdowns came.  It's also the last of the three that were closed to the public last academic year, and it still is, without a stated explanation; I guessed last year that it might be because of COVID-19, and of course it still might, but each year this will get somewhat less plausible.  The page just linked to also gives its hours for the quarter, which total 62.5 per week:  opening at 7:30 A.M. and closing at 6 P.M. weekdays, noon to 5 P.M. weekends.  My spreadsheet differs slightly from the hours given for spring 2015:  I recorded that it was open 76.5 hours per week, opening at 7:30 A.M. weekdays, noon weekends, and closing at 9 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays, 5 P.M. Saturdays, and 7 P.M. Sundays.  (In spring 2015 it closed at 7 P.M. Fridays.)  So it's back to 82% of its pre-pandemic schedule.

The rest of the campuses

• Central Washington University's Sammamish Center, 14.32 miles from my house, is a single building (a former Mars Hill Church site!).  Its student resources page has a link for "library" that points to the main CWU libraries site, whose locations and collections page doesn't mention Sammamish.  So I doubt there's a library in that building.  The building itself, however, opens at 7:30 A.M. weekdays, closing at 5 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays and at 4 P.M. Fridays, for a total of 46.5 hours; unfortunately, the Internet Archive hadn't captured the relevant page until I asked them to while writing this.
• The Everett University Center, 24.03 miles, is a building strongly identified with Washington State University, but two other public universities actually offer master's programs there, Western Washington University and Eastern Washington University.  Of course there's at least one library at nearby Everett Community College (the library I'm thinking of not so very near), which I'll cover in a future part of this page, but I've found no evidence of a library in this building.  The EUC gives hours at the bottom of its home page, 8 A.M. to 10 P.M. weekdays and 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. Saturdays, but also claims there that it's still closed to in-person visits because of the pandemic, so those are probably pre-pandemic hours, and without visiting Everett I can't guess whether it's really still closed or offering some or all of those hours.
  

That's all for libraries tonight, dear Diary.  My next library-related task should probably be to catch up on public libraries and selected private or governmental ones while it's still October, because both the remaining parts of this page, private academic libraries and ones at public campuses that confer only bachelor's and associate's degrees, will take a ton of work.

Meanwhile, I still hope tonight to write up the remaining parks of Ravenna, and maybe also the page about ways the UW bars public visitors from buildings.  So I'll see you soon, dear Diary.