Friday, October 13, 2023

Public Library Hours, Autumn 2023, part IV: North of Seattle

Dear Diary,

This part concerns just two counties, but they have eight public libraries and twenty-one buildings.  I've previously covered fully three of those libraries, with sixteen of the buildings, so have five single-building libraries to cover fully in this part.

Contents of this part:

The ones I've fully covered in the past are Central Skagit Library, Whatcom County Library System, and Bellingham Public Library.

All Skagit County public libraries have reciprocal borrowing agreements with each other.  Both Whatcom County public libraries participate in a one card system (and also have a mostly forgotten reciprocal borrowing agreement).

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

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

Of the libraries in this part, only Central Skagit Library and Bellingham Public Library, both of which I covered fully last year, changed hours between April and October.  In the year since, only La Conner Regional Library and Burlington Public Library have changed hours, while Bellingham Public Library has opened a new branch with very different hours from the existing ones (or most other public libraries in western Washington, for that matter).  Oh, and speaking of unlike other public libraries in western Washington, Upper Skagit Library hasn't changed its hours since April 2022, but in January 2022 it added opening an entire day it hadn't been open before the pandemic. I'm now reasonably sure that no public library in western Washington has added as much to the pre-pandemic hours of any building it had before the pandemic, or in the case of multi-location libraries, has added proportionally as much to its pre-pandemic total hours, as Upper Skagit Library has. Three cheers!  [Correction 10/16:  I was wrong.  Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries' Yale Valley branch has added more to its pre-pandemic hours than Upper Skagit Library has, 14 versus 11, and proportionally much more, 1033% versus 37%.  This is, however, a two-edged sword.  For details, see the forthcoming parts V and VII of this page.]

Quirk - My Mistake

The musical instrument checkouts offered by the Lopez Island Library amazed me (and also squicked me a little, since I'm a former woodwind player).  I then figured it was OK to find quirky things the other two San Juan County libraries offered.  But in Skagit County I found that there was a fair amount of repetition.  Not that that's a bad thing - if a particular odd checkout item is a really good idea, it should be widespread - but then it's no longer quirky.

So, for example, there are seed libraries (such as the one I highlighted at Orcas Island Library) at Mount Vernon City Library (look well down the page), Burlington Public Library, and Anacortes Public Library.  I was charmed that Upper Skagit Library offers a telescope for checkout, but turns out so does Burlington Public Library.  And at the same link above for Mount Vernon Public Library, it goes those one better by offering a "Library of Things", for which the illustration includes a telescope.  But Jefferson County Library goes that better by collecting its "Weird Odd and Wonderful" items on one page, and so does Port Townsend Public Library with its "Unusual Items to Borrow".  And I'd already ignored Timberland Regional Library's "Library of Things".

It looks like library quirk, like almost anything else, is more complicated than it looks, and it was pretty typical of me to dive in late and get egg on my face, dear Diary.  I may try to do better next time, or may not, but I'd best be very selective about quirk going forward this time.

A confessional on unanswered e-mails

In April and October 2022 I was very reluctant to contact the libraries I was writing about; I figured I should behave like one of the public and accept whatever the website offers.  However, by December, once I finished covering the public colleges' academic libraries, I did actually write to all of those saying they might want to see what one person thought of their websites.

This time I've felt very differently; by now, I think, I know how to do this to my satisfaction, although readership numbers have gone low enough that I'm not sure anyone else is satisfied, and although I keep making mistakes, as just discussed.  Anyway, I wrote to only a few of the relatively familiar libraries in part II, and the Puyallup Public Library's director is the only one who didn't answer. (As of tonight, the contradiction between PPL's policy PDF and HTML get a card page remains present.)

But I wrote to all of the libraries in part III.  In the case of the North Olympic Library System, I just said I was planning to post a list of their reciprocal borrowing agreements and if they cared they should say so.  They didn't say so.  In all the other cases I had real questions, though the most common was "Do you offer cards to homeless people?"  And most of those libraries wrote back.  The exception was Lopez Island Library, which doesn't publish staff e-mail addresses, so I just wrote to their generic address.  I figure there's a chance the e-mail hasn't gotten through the bureaucracy yet, or maybe they didn't want to answer that most common question.

This time I wrote to five of the eight, and heard back from the two for whom I had questions other than "Do you offer cards to homeless people?"  In the case of Mount Vernon City Library, I used a generic e-mail address, no other being on offer, so maybe that's why they didn't answer.  In the case of Whatcom County Library System, I used a generic online contact form, no e-mail addresses at all being on offer, so maybe that's why they didn't answer.  [Update 10/16:  They now have answered.]  But my e-mail to the generic e-mail address at Central Skagit Library was promptly answered by the library's director.  And my e-mail to a specific individual at Anacortes Public Library wasn't answered either.

Dear Diary, I hope you don't have any bubbles this will burst, but you're not actually a very big deal in the topics I write in you.  Librarians have a lot of other concerns, and the City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, as you may have noticed in the recent Seattle Times story that linked to you, dear Diary, is now trying to take away your bread and butter by unveiling a Public Restroom/Drinking Fountain Dashboard.  On the other hand, the dashboard currently claims that all of the restrooms in Cowen Park, Ravenna Park, and University Playground are open (well, at least they're admitting University Playground has restrooms), and that of 212 park water fountains in the city 211 are running, so they may not have succeeded yet.  I'll check on all of those parks (but not all of those water fountains!) when I walk to UW soon. But I can't currently afford newspapers to date the photos with, so you'll have to get used to not having those for the time being, dear Diary. (And that's why I wasn't hiking during all the recent good weather.)

I expected you, dear Diary, to wind up not a whole lot later than the page "Two Hours and Two Hours, which very clumsily expressed ideas I understood as central to the conclusions I was aiming for. In, um, early June, 2020. You weren't yet two months old, and I'd just finished hiking the parks of "Northeast" Seattle (then defined by me as ones with NE addresses) for the first time.

As noted above, I tend to jump into things before I really know what I'm doing, get egg on my face, and then try to learn. This may not be the ideal profile of a journalist, but even without a J-school degree for me, I consider you, dear Diary, clearly journalism of a kind. I don't get to insist that these overworked librarians answer my e-mails. But one librarian who did answer my e-mail tried to put those unanswered e-mails into context from her point of view. This section is my attempt to put them into context from mine.

La Conner Regional Library

Of the libraries of Skagit County, this one has the smallest population, but it still manages to present two online faces.  As La Conner Regional Library it's all business, and pretty terse.  As La Conner Swinomish Library it's voluble and diffuse.  Much of the Swinomish Reservation, including the Swinomish Village, is in the La Conner School District which is La Conner's region, and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community gave nearly a million dollars toward a new building, hence the name change.  The new building's dedication is tomorrow (I mean Saturday, October 14) from 3 to 5 P.M.

On March 22, 2019, La Conner Regional Library opened at 11 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, and was closed Sundays; it closed at 7 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 5 P.M. the rest of the days.  So it was open a total of 40 hours per week.  On March 6 and October 6, 2022, it was open 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. Mondays through Fridays, and 9 A.M. to 1 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 34 hours per week.  And on October 11 this year, both home pages said its hours were 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Fridays, and 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 39 hours per week.  The hour still missing is a weekend one.

The difference between the two websites is obvious from their treatment of getting a library card.  I already quoted the whole discussion at the old site for you, dear Diary, but it's so short it won't hurt to remind you:  "To get a free card, you must own or rent property within the boundaries of the La Conner School District and be over 18.  If you do not live in the District boundaries, but would like to purchase a card, it is $50 per year.  You must come into the library to purchase a nonresident card."

At the new site, things are quite different.  The core is this.  "Signing up for a library card is easy to get and free for those who live in the La Conner School District. Anyone age 5 and up is eligible. All we need to see is proof that you reside within our district."  It goes on to describe, a little confusedly, the Skagit reciprocal borrowing agreements.  It doesn't mention the agreement the Whatcom County Library System (very quietly) asserts it has.

Neither site (not even the official policy, 4-page Word document) gives details about what homeless people should do.  Based on my searches, there may be rather more such people in La Conner than I'd expected based on its population.  However, their Use of the Library and Services document (2-page PDF) bars "any other objectionable conduct", but none of its specific examples suggest any familiarity with homeless people.  And those search results I tried turned out to be clickbait talking about homeless people in the bigger cities of Skagit County.  Given their happy event this weekend, I decided not to pester La Conner's library about library cards for the homeless.

That said, the official policy did give me a surprise.  At the end of the first page, and near the end of the card eligibility discussion, comes this:  "Residents outside of the La Conner Regional Library District service area, but who live in a jurisdiction that provides equitable tax support for public library services, can receive a card if they provide a current mailing address, proof of identity, and provide a library card from the local library."  In other words, La Conner, at least officially, offers cards unilaterally.  (And that wording clearly allows homeless non-locals library cards.)  That policy has a last-modified date of 2016, which means I should've been following this library fully from the beginning.  Nevertheless, because this is documented only in the official policy, and not in either site's HTML pages, I'm not confident what would happen if a Seattle resident (especially a homeless one) showed up asking for a card.

Mount Vernon City Library

The Mount Vernon City Library has the highest-population service area in Skagit County, over a quarter of the county's population.  On February 21, 2020 it demonstrated this by keeping the longest library hours in Skagit County (albeit tied with Central Skagit Library, the next-biggest):  10 A.M. to 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, and to 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, for a total of 54 hours per week.  However, on March 31, 2022 it was open very different hours:  10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Fridays, and to 4 P.M. on Saturdays, for a total of 46 hours per week.  It had the same schedule on October 7, 2022, and has the same schedule as of October 11 this year.  All the missing hours are evening ones, because the cut weekend hour on Saturdays is made up by the increase on Fridays.  And now Burlington Public Library and Central Skagit Library have longer hours, and MVCL is tied instead with Anacortes Public Library in the middle.

MVCL doesn't set itself up for the kind of HTML/PDF conflict we just saw with LCRL/LCSL, by the simple expedient of not having its library card eligibility policy PDF online.  Nor, indeed, many other policies.  I was surprised that their Code of Conduct (2-page PDF), which doesn't list any of the rules I track (counter-intuitive for Skagit County's biggest city), is actually just an excerpt of the full one available at the library.  (Skagit County reported 314 homeless people in 2020, and I'd be shocked if Mount Vernon had only a quarter of them.)

Anyway, the HTML page about library cards explicitly acknowledges MVCL's reciprocal borrowing agreements, by name, and demands "Valid photo ID with current address" for all the kinds of cards it describes (which don't include unilaterally offered cards).  Since MVCL isn't dedicating any buildings this weekend, I did e-mail them asking about homeless people's cards, but they didn't answer.

Burlington Public Library

The Burlington Public Library doesn't serve either a big city or a small school district, but a small city; the population behind it is somewhat less than twice that behind La Conner.  Nevertheless, it did remarkably well in re-opening its building, returning to its full hours as of January 28, 2020 by March 8, 2022 and maintaining those hours as of September 30, 2022 and indeed until September 18, 2023.  Those hours involved opening at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, and closing at 5 P.M. Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays, and 8 P.M. Tuesdays through Thursdays.  The recent change is that on Thursdays they now close at 5 P.M.  It's still ahead, in total hours, of Mount Vernon City Library, at 48 hours per week now versus 51 heretofore; the difference from its prior, and pre-pandemic, schedule is entirely evening hours.

Burlington Public Library also doesn't keep its library card eligibility policy online.  Their get a card page restricts cards in general to Burlington residents, but with exceptions for Burlington-Edison School District students and employees, and for their reciprocal borrowing agreements, which they don't list.

They do keep their Patron Conduct Policy online, last modified 2014.  Its examples of banned activities include "camping on Library grounds", "Using restrooms for bathing or shampooing, doing laundry, or changing clothes", "Entering the Library ... with offensive body odor or personal hygiene", "Bringing in articles that are too large to fit under one Library chair", "Lying down or sleeping", and, um, "Loitering in vehicles parked in designated Library parking".  The only one they outright missed was an unattended property ban, but admittedly that's a pretty narrow loitering ban.  I suspect the Mount Vernon policy that isn't online is probably similar.  In any event, this is clear evidence that this library has encountered homeless people, although its name is too common throughout North America to get much out of searches.  When I instead searched the city website, I found two successive 2018 moratoria on day services (such as showers that could alleviate "offensive body odor"), and a city-sponsored shelter site whose "official website" hasn't been updated since mid-2021.  I have no idea what's happened since then.

Central Skagit Library

This is the only Skagit County library that I covered fully last April, because it then made its unilateral offering of library cards too blatant for stupid me to miss.  Central Skagit Library District represents the unincorporated parts of its service area (the Sedro-Woolley School District), while the City of Sedro-Woolley represents the rest.  The agreement by which city and district share a recently built library building is due to expire in, now, a bit less than ten years.  (None of the three incorporated areas in the school district, the city of Sedro-Woolley and the towns of Hamilton and Lyman, has acceded to the library district.  But Sedro-Woolley has a separate deal, so Lyman and Hamilton are the outliers. A 2016 Skagit County library district map, 1-page PDF, claims there's a Hamilton municipal library, but I haven't found any other evidence, even at the town's website, that one exists.)

CSL hasn't changed its hours since last autumn:  it's still open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Saturdays.  This represents 48 hours open per week, as against 54 before the pandemic; morning hours were and are 25; evening hours have gone from 20 to 12, and weekend hours from 9 to 11.

CSL has, however, changed its URLs.  The new domain name, skagitcatalog.org, seems to hint at CSL's idea of how Skagit County should unify, but I don't think any other library is involved.  The new get a card squib doesn't mention the reciprocal borrowing agreements or the unilateral offering of cards.  Their policy manual (19-page non-PDF, page 4, last modified 2020) does offer cards unilaterally, but still doesn't mention reciprocal cards.  Finally, the new squib appears to say that of the residents of the unincorporated areas in the Sedro-Woolley School District, only students and teachers are eligible for library cards, which isn't at all what the 2022 website said.

I e-mailed CSL asking about all that, and got a detailed reply from library director Jeanne Williams.  It turns out I wasn't thinking mathematically enough.  Of course the library does what the policy manual says, and offers cards unilaterally.  Since it does so, there's no need to mention the reciprocal borrowing agreements.  (This isn't true, because the website may also be read by CSL's people wanting to know about other cards they might be eligible for, but anyway.)  Also, since everyone who lives in unincorporated parts of the Sedro-Woolley School district pays for the library, everyone there must know that they do so, and therefore know that they're eligible for the unilaterally offered cards.  Therefore the squib only mentions students and teachers, because there might be students and teachers who live in Lyman or Hamilton and need to be told that they can get cards.

I was a mathematics major, to the extent that I was anything in my failed pursuit of a bachelor's degree, but mainly, I'm a writer.  So here's the core of what I would say if I were writing a library card eligibility HTML page for CSL:

"Library cards in Washington state are issued according to several kinds of rules.  Central Skagit Library's rule is that anyone in Washington whose taxes support public libraries is eligible for a free library card.  In Central Skagit Library's own district, the Sedro-Woolley School District, that's everyone except the residents of Lyman and Hamilton.

"If your taxes support Central Skagit Library, you're also eligible to get free library cards at libraries that have made reciprocal agreements with Central Skagit Library.  These are La Conner Regional Library, Mount Vernon City Library, Burlington Public Library, Anacortes Public Library and Upper Skagit Library.  [I don't have a list, and don't know whether CSL negotiated any more.] Please remember that these are separate library cards. You should return every item to the library you borrowed it from, or it will cost libraries extra money and could easily go overdue, affecting you.

"If you live elsewhere in Skagit County, but in the service area of one of our reciprocal partners or of Sno-Isle Libraries, your taxes support a public library in Washington, and you can get a free Central Skagit Library card. Remember, please return our items to our building.

"Sedro-Woolley School District students and staff who live in Lyman or Hamilton, or outside the school district, are also eligible for free Central Skagit Library cards.

"If you live elsewhere in Skagit County, and not in any library's service area (for example, if you live in Lyman or Hamilton and aren't a student or teacher), you can't get a free Central Skagit Library card.  Central Skagit Library is one of several Skagit County libraries that offer library cards for fees.  You may wish to comparison shop.

"If you live outside Skagit County, you can probably figure out your situation vis-a-vis Central Skagit Library from the above.  If not, ask."

Williams also told me that homeless people can get cards that have limits on physical borrowing.

On pages 4 and 5 of the policy manual are the conduct rules I quoted in April 2022.

Anacortes Public Library

Anacortes has a bit less than twice the population of Burlington, and a bit more than half that of Mount Vernon.  It's the only coastal municipality in Skagit County.  That may be why the Anacortes Public Library, on October 18, 2019, was the only Skagit County public library open on Sundays.  It was open 50 hours per week, opening at 11 A.M. every day, and closing at 7 P.M. weekdays and 4 P.M. weekends.  On May 17, 2022 it was open 46 hours per week, opening at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, and closing at 6 P.M. weekdays and 4 P.M. Saturdays, and it's kept that schedule as of October 6, 2022 and as of October 11, 2023.  So it's re-opened to 25 morning hours (as against 20 back then), 12 evening hours (versus 16) and 9 weekend hours (versus 14).

APL's get a library card link goes directly to an application that says the applicant will have to pay a fee if they live outside Anacortes city limits.  Their library card FAQs page is where they list by name their reciprocal borrowing agreements.  They don't appear to offer cards unilaterally.  They don't address homelessness at all, and since Anacortes is the second-largest city in Skagit County, and a port, I e-mailed to ask about it, but got no answer.

Buried on the 33rd page (though numbered 18) of a 54-page PDF By-Laws and Policies of the Anacortes Public Library Board of Trustees dated 2016, the "Code of Conduct", itself dated 2013, lists two of the rules I track.  It lists as "examples of conduct not allowed on Library property":  "Using restrooms for bathing or shampooing, doing laundry, or changing clothes."  And "Lying down or sleeping".

The remaining twenty pages of that book are "pilot" reciprocal borrowing agreements between APL and each of the other Skagit County public libraries. I'd seen hints suggesting that all the reciprocity had been arranged at once, but it looks like there really had to be fifteen separate library pair agreements, and these five spanned a year, 2009-2010.

Upper Skagit Library

Upper Skagit Library and the Internet Archive don't see eye to eye on how to design a website.  As a result, the Archive doesn't preserve the library's pre-pandemic hours.  However, Chazlyn Lovely, their marketing person, was kind enough to send me several sets, and gave me permission, dear Diary, to put the February 2020 set of hours onto my Google Drive account.  That set showed Upper Skagit Library opening at 10 A.M. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and closing at 7 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 5 P.M. Fridays and 3 P.M. Saturdays.  So it was open 30 hours per week, of which 15 were morning, 8 evening, and 7 weekend.

As of January 2022 according to Ms. Lovely, and according to the Archive April 14, 2022 and September 28, 2022, and this very day, USL is open 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. Tuesdays through Thursdays, and 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.  So now it's open 41 hours per week, of which 20 are morning, 12 are evening, and 9 are weekend.  All I can say is, wow!

USL's getting a card rules have a good side and a bad side.  On the good side, they actually spend a whole page bragging about their reciprocal borrowing agreements, which include, besides the other five Skagit County libraries, Sno-Isle Libraries, Timberland Regional Library, and Whatcom County Library District.  On the bad side, their actual getting a card page is absurdly hard to find (possibly Firefox run over Linux isn't their target audience; what appear intended to be links in every page's footer, including "get a library card", don't work for me, and are gibberish in the page source [1]).  The getting a card page doesn't mention the reciprocal agreements, relying on people to know those exist or instead pay a fee.  And it insists on physical addresses for both resident and non-resident cards, which Ms. Lovely acknowledged means homeless people can't get cards.  She told me they're working on that.  However, she also told me they accept a delivered post card as proof of mailing address, and she's pretty sure they've issued a card based on a post card delivered to General Delivery.  So I'm not sure they have anything real to work on, except toning down the web page's insistence on physical addresses.

Their Patron Policy, last modified July 2023, has only one, and a surprising one, of the policies I follow:  "Any items left unattended for more than 5 minutes will be placed in the library lost and found."  Various others are visible in their ancestral, not at all homeless-specific forms, for example this:  "Use library facilities, resources, and equipment as intended." instead of a series of bans.  Chazlyn Lovely told me yes, Concrete does have homeless people, but perhaps they haven't been much trouble at the library yet.

[1] Not to be a tease, this is what the lines presumably intended to link to the "How to Get a Card" page in the footer look like in the page source I see, though differently whitespaced:

<li class="elementor-icon-list-item"> 

<span class="elementor-icon-list-text">How to Get a Card</span> 

</li>

No URL findable in that, so Firefox doesn't find one.

Whatcom County Library System

The libraries of Whatcom County are the only ones to be covered in parts III, IV or V of this page that use BiblioCommons.  However, both of them, like the Seattle Public Library, have maintained single-page records of their hours, rather than rely on BiblioCommons's norm of keeping hours only on each individual branch's page.  Whatcom County Library System's single page record is here.

What that shows is that WCLS hasn't changed its hours since I first checked them in April 2022.  It re-opened - to different hours from November 2, 2019 - and whatever it changed between re-opening and, say, January 21, 2022, it hasn't changed since, except for re-opening its Sumas branch.  In six cases it's re-opened to its pre-pandemic hours, and in four others it hasn't; it had seven schedules for ten branches before, and it has as many now.

  • The Ferndale and Lynden branches now open at 9 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays and at 1 P.M. Sundays, and close at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays, and 5 P.M. weekends, for a total of 65 hours.  They open one hour earlier Mondays through Saturdays, and close one hour earlier Mondays through Thursdays, than before the pandemic.
  • The Blaine, Deming (Nooksack Reservation) and Everson branches now open at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays, and close at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays, and 5 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 55 hours.  This was also their schedule before the pandemic.
  • The North Fork branch now opens at 10 A.M. Tuesdays through Saturdays, and closes at 8 P.M. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6 P.M. Wednesdays and Fridays, and 5 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 43 hours.  This was also its schedule before the pandemic.
  • The South Whatcom branch has the same schedule except that it's open late Wednesdays rather than Thursdays.  This was also its schedule before the pandemic.
  • The Sumas branch opens at 10 A.M. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and closes at 6 P.M. Mondays and Wednesdays and at 5 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 23 hours.  Before the pandemic it closed at 5 Mondays and 7 Wednesdays.
  • The Lummi Island branch is open 1 P.M. to 7 P.M. Tuesdays and 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Thursdays and Saturdays, for a total of 20 hours.  Before the pandemic it was open 2 P.M. to 8 P.M. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
  • The Point Roberts branch has the same schedule except that it's open Wednesdays instead of Thursdays.  However, in this case this was also its schedule before the pandemic.

So WCLS is now open 444 hours per week (439 before) - 199 morning hours (184 before), 144 evening hours (156 before), and 101 weekend hours (99 before).

WCLS participates in a county-wide one card system (a consortium of libraries each of which agrees to honour the others' cards) called Whatcom Libraries Collaborate, which doesn't seem to have a home page of its own.  Its other members include Bellingham Public Library, up next; Bellingham Technical College; Northwest Indian College; Western Washington University; and Whatcom Community College.  WCLS has even closer ties to Bellingham Public Library; it warns applicants for library cards that if they live in Bellingham, WCLS will issue them a Bellingham Public Library card, not a WCLS one!

WCLS and Bellingham Public Library both offer cards unilaterally, as well.  In WCLS's case this reads as follows:  "Residents of jurisdictions within Washington State that provide equitable tax support for public library service. In addition to current address and proof of identity, applicants must present a library card from their local jurisdiction."  In keeping with this, it downplays its reciprocal borrowing agreements, but they continue to be listed in the WCLS budget, whose 2023 version (21-page PDF; amended several times since, so don't rely on it as the current actual budget) names on page 5 the La Conner Regional Library, the Upper Skagit Library, and the Canadian "Fraser Valley Library System" (Fraser Valley Regional Library, which inconveniently has the same acronym as Fort Vancouver Regional Library in Washington).

Because WCLS and Bellingham Public Library issue cards unilaterally, the one card system means that people from, say, Seattle who obtain those cards can also borrow from the other members, notably Northwest Indian College and Western Washington University.  Last year I checked with WWU by phone to confirm this, but I haven't asked NIC.

WCLS's get a card page, which I said last year had "no mention of, or even links to, the details", now has links.  What neither that page nor the borrower's policy it links to says is how one proves one's residence to WCLS, especially if one doesn't have a residence.  Since, this year, I'm asking questions like that, I e-mailed WCLS asking, and got no answer.  [Update 10/16:  The answer was that they do not require proof of residence, and accept only mailing addresses for homeless patrons, even the branch's own address if necessary.  However, the cards last only 3 months, at the end of which time they can be renewed.  For a discussion of reasons for this see the forthcoming part VII.]

WCLS's Disruptive Behavior policy now has a July 2023 last-modified date.  Let's see what's changed, shall we, dear Diary?

Their grooming ban has gotten longer:  "Using restrooms for laundry or bathing needs that are excessive or unreasonable."  I suspect any such activity by a homeless person that would be much use for that person would be "excessive or unreasonable"; probably this is just meant to allow hand-washing, for example, or maybe quick stain-remediation action.

They've intelligently revised their hygiene rule, which now reads:  "Having a personal scent or odor so strong as to impact others."

And they've entirely changed what was previously an explicit loitering (and sleeping) ban.  It now reads "Excessive use of space that impacts others’ ability to use the library."

So I'd say this is somewhat better for homeless WCLS patrons than before, although I doubt the revisions had that as a major purpose.

Bellingham Public Library

The Bellingham Public Library has changed its hours the hard way this time, by opening a whole new branch.  So now it has four branches with three schedules.

  • Central Library opens at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 P.M. Sundays, and closes at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 5 P.M. Sundays, for a total of 56 hours per week.  Before the pandemic it was open as many hours, but closed at 8 P.M. Mondays and Tuesdays and 6 P.M. Wednesdays and Thursdays, so the distribution of hours by my classification scheme is also the same.
  •  Fairhaven and Barkley branches are open 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays, 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. Wednesdays through Fridays, for a total of 24 hours per week.  Before the pandemic they were open until 6 P.M. Saturdays, so they're down four weekend hours each.
  • The new branch in Bellis Fair mall is open 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Saturdays and 1 P.M. to 5 P.M. Sundays, for a total of 23 hours per week, of which 3 are morning, 6 evening, and 14 weekend.

So in total, Bellingham Public Library is now open 127 hours per week (as against 112 before the pandemic), including 50 morning hours (47 then), 34 evening hours (28 then), and 43 weekend hours (37 then).

Bellingham Public Library's library card page still has what I quoted in April 2022, and still has the same (favourable) implications for homeless and non-resident people who want cards. I didn't link to their eligibility for library service policy (not a PDF) previously, so am doing so now; no contradictions. They do unilateral cards ("Library cards are available at no charge to card holders of other public libraries within Washington State with verification of identity and eligibility.") and participate in the Whatcom Libraries Collaborate one card system, so they've never really done much with reciprocal borrowing agreemements, except with WCLS (whose reciprocal agreements they've sometimes considered themselves bound by too); a site-specific search for "reciprocal borrowing" turns up a bunch of board of trustees stuff from past decades, but no list.

Their Rules of Conduct have a last-modified date of 2018, and still include everything I quoted in April and October 2022, including, still, a ban on "Loitering".

Plans for this and other library pages going forward

Last year I started four series of accounts of libraries, and finished, to my then satisfaction, three of them. They were public libraries, "other governmental libraries", "private libraries", and academic libraries, which is the one I didn't finish. I think this was a confusing structure. Academic libraries can be either governmental or private; "other" governmental was meant to mean "other than public libraries". Anyway, this year I plan to do academic libraries second, then "other" governmental, then a much shorter version of the private (non-academic) libraries.

As for this page? Part V, concluding the library by library review, should come on Wednesday, October 18. I'm still thinking about ways to conclude the page as a whole. Obviously I have to bang whatever gong I have in you, dear Diary, even louder with regard to the continued decline in public library hours later than 3 P.M. But one thing I'm thinking of, beyond that and other comments I'm pretty sure I'll still have by then, is to compile a series of tables, indicating for features I've covered (like conduct rules and borrowing privileges) and also ones I haven't (overdue fines, say) which libraries have which of them. We'll see.

I changed part VI three times after writing it in you, dear Diary. I still think its subject, how statistically prevalent the lack of public library service is in western Washington, is worth writing about, and haven't found anyone else doing so. But I've come to the conclusion that it'll take an immense amount of work to get it right. (Details: I tried to use census information to answer the question, but was taking an approach I should have known would fail. I actually already have the tools with which to do the job right, they just take vast heaps of time, so I wanted to try a shortcut.) I'm willing to tackle that work, but it's rapidly becoming untenable for me to continue living housed, as I often did while homeless, without a dollar in my pocket with which to buy a newspaper. I can certainly finish part V and, say, parts VII and VIII and still act on that need, but part VI will be too time-intensive to do much with in the short term.

Good night and good days and nights hereafter, dear Diary, until we meet again.

 

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