Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Public Library Hours, Autumn 2023, part III: Northwest of Seattle

Dear Diary,

This part of this page may end up much shorter than the last one, because it covers the public libraries of only three counties, which have between them only six library institutions with a total of nine library buildings.  However, in previous pages, I've covered only two of the institutions (five buildings) what I consider "fully", so this part may not be much shorter after all.  Anyway, here's where I'll explain what I mean by "covering" a library "fully".

Contents of this part:

The ones I've covered fully are the Port Townsend Public Library and North Olympic Library System.  (The six libraries more than thirty miles from Seattle that I covered fully in April 2022 all then appeared to offer library cards unilaterally on terms that might include Seattle residents.)

Previous parts of pages relevant to this part, for the four libraries not previously fully covered:

Additional previous page and part of page relevant to this part, for the two libraries previously fully covered:

Every library entry in "Library Hours Six Months Later", my first attempt to cover most or all of the libraries in western Washington, was made out of a set of components.  For fully covered public libraries, those components were:

  • Five things in part II or part III:
    • The distance from my house to the library's nearest location, in hundredths of a mile, on the basis of this distance calculator.  I've more recently stopped using that one in favour of another, but almost all the distances to libraries in western Washington, which are my default sort order, came from the first calculator.  For all libraries except private academic ones, I already gave those distances, so don't need to do so here; if I get to private academic libraries this autumn, or tackle eastern Washington in the spring, they'll re-appear.  All eastern Washington distances will probably come from the new calculator.
    • An introduction, usually.
    • The pre-pandemic and current hours of the library, given in detail, mainly in text paragraphs.
    • The library's rules for providing cards, primarily to non-residents and to homeless people.
    • Results of a search for ' "[library's name]" "homeless" '.
  • And two more things in the second half of part IV:
    • The library's rules for patron conduct, specifically the set of rules described in detail in the first half of part III of "Six Months Later" and re-listed in part I of this page, and at least a sketch of the enforcement provisions.
    • Results of the 2020 point-in-time count of homeless people for the library's service area, as best I could approximate that.

The four libraries not fully covered (as well as a dozen more in other parts) didn't get an introduction, didn't get their hours covered, didn't get a search on their relations with homeless people, didn't get their rules quoted in the second half of part III of "Six Months Later", and I didn't look for their point-in-time counts. All I did, in most cases including all four in this part, was give their distances (basically to illustrate why I'd sorted the lists of libraries the way I had) and summarise their card rules (usually without links).

This time, I've been covering current hours fully anyway, though thankfully not in text paragraphs for the multi-location libraries. And I've been linking to, but not usually much more than that, library card and patron conduct policies. What I've written in addition about these four libraries is any introduction that might seem appropriate, their pre-pandemic hours (thank Heaven I fully covered most of the multi-location libraries already), their 2022 hours if I can find those, their card policies in more detail with links, information about that library and the homeless, their patron conduct rules with quotes and links, and the 2020 point-in-time count.

Most of the libraries in this part haven't changed their hours since fall 2022.  The only exception is Lopez Island Library.  The two I covered fully in 2022, Port Townsend Public Library and North Olympic Library System, changed hours between spring 2022 and that autumn, but haven't changed since.  The remaining three (Jefferson County Library, San Juan Island Library and Orcas Island Library) haven't changed their hours since spring 2022.

The only two libraries in this part that don't keep their hours on their home page are the two I fully covered last year.

Jefferson County Library

The Jefferson County Library is in Port Hadlock, a fairly long hike south from the Port Townsend Public Library; its first home was a room in PTPL.  As for the rest of Jefferson County?  It admits:  "The District operates a Bookmobile Service throughout the east side of the County.  Service for the west end residents of Jefferson County is provided through a reciprocal agreement with Timberland Regional Library System and a contract agreement with North Olympic Library System."  (For those not familiar with the map, Jefferson County is mostly part of various mountainous parks, chiefly Olympic National Park.  A significant amount of land in the east, on the Puget Sound coasts, is where most of its people live, but there are also people on the west, the Pacific coast, with the parks, and mountains, in between.  The nearest branch of NOLS to those people is Forks, and the nearest branch of TRL is Amanda Park.)

On February 12, 2020, JCL opened at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, 1 P.M. Sundays, and closed at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays through Sundays.  On April 7 and October 6, 2022 and on October 7, 2023, it's kept the same hours except for closing at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays.  So it's now open 54 hours per week, versus 58 in early 2020 - 25 morning hours at both times, 13 weekend hours at both times, but 16 evening hours now, 20 then.

JCL offers cards only to "residents of Jefferson County" (and temporary residents).  The linked page about getting a card offers no hope of a card to any non-resident.

Like Sno-Isle Libraries in part II, JCL doesn't list its reciprocal borrowing agreeements.  However, I e-mailed Tamara Meredith, director of JCL, mainly about other questions but also to offer her the chance to comment on my plan to list them here.  She said the reason JCL's pages don't list them is the rise of unilateral card-issuing (in fact, all of the library's nearest neighbours - Kitsap Regional Library, Sno-Isle Libraries, and the two next in this part - offer cards unilaterally).  So she gave me a more complete list:

JCL also operates (9-page PDF) a one card system that includes Port Townsend Public Library (and that's probably why PTPL doesn't list JCL as a reciprocal partner), several school districts' libraries, and a library at the Northwest Maritime Center.  This system is named Cooperative Libraries of the Eastern Olympics, acronymised CLEO, and the closest thing it has to a home page is a shared catalogue, but JCL has an ad for it up that gives some explanation.  Because PTPL offers cards unilaterally, and Tamara Meredith assures me PTPL cards all look the same, the way a Seattle resident can borrow from JCL is not by getting a JCL card, but getting a PTPL one and using CLEO.

JCL wants a photo ID to get a card, and if that ID doesn't have the person's current address, "a piece of mail" suffices to establish that.  However, JCL's Use of Library Materials policy (2-page PDF) says that if one can't prove one's physical address, one gets a card with "limited privileges".  In their Circulation Policy (2-page PDF):  "New cardholders with unverified addresses will be limited to four items on their first visit to the Library."  Tamara Meredith told me homeless people are indefinitely limited to four physical items, and this is the only difference between their cards and those of housed people.

The 2020 count, as reported by the state, found 139 people homeless in Jefferson County, but as I speculated in April 2022 sv the Port Townsend Public Library, I expect the majority were in Port Townsend, where the only shelter is.  Several search strategies produced nothing interesting concerning JCL and the homeless.  The JCL "Library Standards of Behavior" (2-page PDF, last modified September 2021) includes only two of the rules I track, in different categories.  "When using the library ... Do not leave belongings unattended.  The Jefferson County Library District is not responsible for items that are lost, stolen, or damaged in library facilities or on library grounds."  So that's not so much an unattended property ban as it's an unattended property warning.  In contrast, "The following behaviors are prohibited ... Improper or unsafe use of library facilities or grounds, including camping, overnight parking, riding bicycles or skateboards in an unsafe manner, etc."  That really is a camping ban.  But there's actually no reference in the "prohibited" section to the whole concept of "access" which underlies, in particular, sleeping bans.  The discussion of enforcement begins by directing staff to explain the rules to violators, and ask the latter to stop; from there, however, it ramps up pretty quickly to exclusion and trespass.

Port Townsend Public Library

The Port Townsend Public Library is a single-location library that doesn't keep its hours on its home page.  Those hours hadn't, as of October 7, changed in the past year; they still open at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 P.M. Sundays, and close at 5 P.M. Fridays through Mondays and 7 P.M. Tuesdays through Thursdays.  Their hours listed April 8, 2020, just before Port Townsend put lockdown notices onto all its Web pages, were the same except that they closed at 6 P.M. Fridays; so they're fully re-opened to their pre-pandemic hours except for one weekend hour.

Their getting a library card page continues to list the same reciprocal borrowing agreements as in April 2022 (whose users can still use PTPL's inter-library loan), confirms that PTPL belongs to the CLEO one card system, and also offers cards unilaterally:  "People who live elsewhere in Washington State or have a mailing address outside of Washington State with picture ID and proof of permanent address may obtain a visitor card. Local general delivery or post office box are options for someone without an address. These cards limit the holder to 10 items checked out and automatically expire at the end of 6 months. Visitor cards are not eligible for interlibrary loan services."  So they've fixed the run-on sentence I mocked in April 2022, but this still isn't quite clear.  I e-mailed the library's director, Melody Sky Weaver, who told me yes, the reference to General Delivery means that local homeless people, as well as homeless people from elsewhere, get visitor cards.  (And therefore can't use inter-library loan.)  For the housed, though, Weaver said I, as a King County resident, could get a non-resident card (and use PTPL's inter-library loan!), and residents of Alberta could get visitor cards.

The City of Port Townsend's Sharing the Space Policy (2-page PDF) doesn't have a last-modified date, but still contains the same rules I quoted last April and October.

North Olympic Library System

North Olympic Library System, the only library in this part with multiple locations, has a branch in each of Clallam County's municipalities, so their district really is the whole of the county.  (Only municipalities can opt out of district libraries, or in fact have to opt in in the first place.)  Branch hours are the same as last October, but somewhat different from those in April 2022 and also those in February 2019.  But all branches have been closed Sundays each of these times.

  • The main library in Port Angeles, and also the only branch east of there, in Sequim, are open 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. Fridays and to 5 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 53 hours.
  • The Forks branch is on the same schedule except that it closes at 5 P.M. Fridays, for a total of 52 hours.
  • The Clallam Bay branch is open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Wednesdays and 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Thursdays and Fridays, for a total of 38 hours.

So in total NOLS is open now 196 hours per week (versus 200 in 2019):  morning hours 103 (versus 97), evening hours 59 (versus 70), weekend hours 34 (versus 33).

North Olympic Library System still has both the conduct rules (2-page PDF) and the library card rules (4-page PDF), including unilateral card offers as well as pretty bad sub-standard cards for people who specifically include users of General Delivery, that I quoted in April 2022.  The library card page doesn't mention non-residents of Clallam County, but does link to the PDF which does.

Neither the PDF nor the page mention reciprocal borrowing agreements - in fact, nothing at NOLS's site does.  So here's another list of publicly documented agreements:

Given that list, I'd be pretty shocked if Sno-Isle Libraries, which also doesn't reveal its list of reciprocal borrowing agreements, didn't have such an agreement with NOLS too.  Since Jefferson County Library mentions a "contract" with NOLS in the same context that it mentions its reciprocal agreement with Timberland Regional Library, I was sure JCL and NOLS didn't have a reciprocal agreement, but Tamara Meredith tells me they do.

I'm pretty sure Jefferson County's one card system CLEO includes nothing in Clallam County (nor, indeed, the Peninsula College location in Port Townsend, which may not have a library of its own anyway).  In particular, CLEO certainly doesn't include NOLS.

Lopez Island Library

Lopez Island Library has increased its hours steadily since it re-opened.

  • On February 19, 2020, it opened at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, and closed at 5 P.M. Mondays and Saturdays, 9 P.M. Wednesdays, and 6 P.M. the rest, for a total of 49 hours per week.
  • On March 7, 2022, the hours I'd have seen if I'd looked while writing "Six Months Later" were: opening at 11 A.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 A.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and closing at 6 P.M. Tuesdays, 2 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 5 P.M. the rest, for a total of 33 hours per week.
  • On September 2, 2022, the hours I'd have seen while writing "Public Library Hours One Year Later" were: opening at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, and closing at 2 P.M. Saturdays, 5 P.M. the rest, for a total of 39 hours per week.
  • And on October 8, 2023, I found these hours: 9:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. Mondays through Fridays, except closing at 7 P.M. Wednesdays, and 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 45.5 hours per week.

So LIL is nearly back to its pre-pandemic total hours.  It has 27.5 morning hours (25 then), 11.5 evening hours (14 then), and 6.5 weekend hours (10 then).

LIL's get a library card page is reasonably clear:  Only Lopez Island residents get free cards.  There is, however, reference to reciprocal borrowing agreements buried on page 26 of a 96-page PDF Policy Manual from 2018, listing "Orcas Library" and San Juan Island Library.  Also, I haven't seen LIL listed by any libraries other than those two as a reciprocal borrowing partner.  I would guess that library employees actually do look at the policy manual now and then, so might actually know what to do if someone from one of those islands came in looking for a card.  Residents of the other San Juan islands (several have small populations), and of everywhere else, definitely have to pay for Lopez library cards.  (That policy manual is "under review".)

It isn't obvious to me that LIL would give a card to a homeless person.  From the page about getting a card:  "Proof of residency is required. If you are not listed as owner of a property in the San Juan County Assessor’s database, then a utility bill in your name, a driver’s license, or record of local employment can be used to confirm you are a Lopez Island resident."  I wrote to ask (have been doing that a lot this year) but got no answer.  But then, there aren't a lot of homeless people in San Juan County - it found 65 individual homeless people in 2020 [1] - and Lopez Island has only about a sixth of the county's population.  In keeping with this, of the seven rules I'm tracking, LIL has (2018 policy manual, page 31) only a hygiene rule:  "Offensive personal hygiene or unprotected coughing, sneezing or discharging of fluids without regard to patron safety or contamination."  The most interesting thing I found searching for LIL and the homeless was a false positive - a Pew report on library innovation that mentioned some other library doing something for the homeless, and separately mentioned LIL's circulating musical instruments.

[1] San Juan County thinks it has several times as many homeless people, because it uses the more capacious definition of homelessness that includes people like couch-surfers.

San Juan Island Library

In April 2022, I incorrectly classified the San Juan Island Library as a municipal library.  It is, in fact, a district library whose district is San Juan Island.

SJIL has not increased its hours steadily.  On December 30, 2019, they opened at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 P.M. Sundays, and they closed at 6 P.M. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 8 P.M. Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 5 P.M. weekends, for a total of 55 hours per week.  On April 12, 2022,  as well as October 14, 2022 and October 9, 2023, they were open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Fridays, and 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 45 hours per week.  So they've re-opened all of their 25 pre-pandemic morning hours, 12 of their 16 evening ones, and 8 of their 14 weekend ones.

SJIL's page on How to Get a Library Card is mostly clear; if one reads "proof of permanent address and one of the following", as, say, "proof of permanent address, such as one of the following", the whole page makes sense.  "Postmarked mail" is accepted as proof.  The page doesn't address what to do for people whose postmarked mail was addressed to General Delivery, but does actually address couch-surfing as well as temporary residents.  It explicitly acknowledges the reciprocal borrowing agreements with Lopez Island Library and Orcas Island Library.  I actually wrote to all three San Juan libraries asking about cards for the homeless, and Sue Vulgares, SJIL circulation manager, said that she knows of one case in which they charged a homeless man for a card but a charity picked up the bill.  Since then she's personally been researching ways libraries around the country handle this issue, and expects to act on that research this autumn.

San Juan Island includes about half of San Juan County's population and the county's only municipality, so probably has more than half of the county's few homeless people.  SJIL's 2022 policy manual (75-page PDF) didn't enlighten me as to their ability to get cards, but does have the most recent version of the rules of conduct, last modified 2022 (page 41).  These touch on three or maybe four of the rules I'm tracking.  "While in the library or on library property, the following are prohibited:  ...  Taking up space beyond what is needed for one person, or leaving personal belongings unattended.  ...  Sleeping or camping."  Sleeping ban, camping ban, unattended property ban, and arguably something that could turn into a box rule (and already contains enough ambiguity to create a "gotcha" rule).  My usual search turned up the news that the library has something to do with the annual point-in-time count, and that the Friends of the Library work to find homes for "homeless" dogs.

I'd already found odd items lent by the other two San Juan County libraries and wondered if SJIL had any.  Um, sorta.  It lends out assistive technology so people considering using that can try before buying.

Orcas Island Library

Orcas Island Library, as of February 21, 2020  opened at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays and noon on Sundays, and closed at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 3 P.M. Sundays, for a total of 53 hours.  As of March 15, 2022, it was open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Saturdays, and noon to 3 P.M. Sundays, for a total of 51 hours.  The same schedule held November 8, 2022 and October 9, 2023.  So it's been open to its full pre-pandemic morning hours (25), to 12 evening hours (formerly 16), and to 14 weekend hours (formerly 12).

Both the "get a card" part of the library's about page and the material loan policy explicitly acknowledge reciprocal agreements with Lopez Island Library and San Juan Island Library.  The policy says nothing about homeless people, but library director Ingrid Mattson tells me that OIL does indeed issue cards to them.  While I was looking for an e-mail address to ask, I stumbled across OIL's pride and joy, its seed library.

Orcas Island has about a third of San Juan County's population, and Eastsound, where the library is, is the second-biggest settlement in the county after Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.  I think the island probably has some homeless people.  The library's conduct at the library policy, under "Unacceptable conduct", says "Specific examples include, but are not limited to, ... offensive personal hygiene, ... and overnight camping on the Library grounds."

Well, dear Diary, I'm plugging along with the many libraries of Skagit County, and hope to tell you about those and the libraries of Whatcom County, some of which you're already familiar with, on Friday.  Until then, happy nights and days.


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