Downtown Seattle's Street Fountains This Week

Dear Diary,

After three afternoons and evenings of returning to downtown parks, I've re-visited three-quarters of my list.  But it's going to take me a bunch of work to write the pages most of those places need, and I wanted to get something written before then.

So I'm singling out one category of place.  Or maybe two.

To start with, twelve drinking water fountains that Seattle Public Utilities maintains on the streets of downtown Seattle.  Their pseudo-map of these fountains was updated after I last discussed it in July 2021, and now includes most fountains known to me.  Specifically, what I refer to as a "street fountain" is two related things:  a drinking water fountain on a city street, but also a specific style of drinking water fountain that in Seattle, in my experience, is usually used on streets but not in parks.  All twelve of these fountains are recognisably that style.

Five other water fountains downtown that SPU doesn't list are also in the same style.  Four of those latter five are on sidewalks adjacent to parks owned by the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation; the fifth is actually inside such a park.  The parks are Westlake Park, Prefontaine Place, Pioneer Square with two fountains, and Hing Hay Park where the fountain is inside the park.  However, SPU isn't really consistent about this.  It lists a fountain in Occidental Square, and in North Seattle one (out of two) on the Burke-Gilman Trail.  Faced with such inconsistency, this page includes the five park-proximate ones too.

I haven't, in my hikes around downtown this week, been specifically looking for more street fountains; nor, for that matter, was I when I hiked around downtown last fall.  On the other hand, I did add a bunch of places to my initial lists last fall, and did add two so far this week; I'm not being completely unobservant.  But the fact is, SPU's initial June 2021 map showed fewer fountains than the current one shows.  So possibly there are downtown street fountains I haven't found and SPU still doesn't list.  Anyway, this page lists those known to me, in the order used by SPU, with the park-proximate fountains merged where I thought best.

Here's a map.  The SPU ones are black; the one in Occidental Square that's both SPU and parks is gray-green; and the ones that are only parks are green.

The pseudo-map presents the twelve as street addresses, and it can't be magnified to show downtown clearly.  So I name them both by the street addresses and by whatever else I think appropriate.  However, first:  I'm aware that my tagging system (well, Blogspot calls 'em labels, but they're tags) - anyway, I haven't tried to adapt it to downtown in any detail, let alone to specific street fountains there.  On top of which, the "labels" aren't even shown to readers reading on their phones.  So here are links to previous pages in which I've discussed downtown street fountains, and I'll cite those pages under each individual fountain as relevant.

1 - "Water Fountains:  Things We've Lost, Part II", 5/1/2020.

2 - "Ways to Fight Water Addiction", 6/18/2020.

3 - "Water Fountains - an Interim Report, Part III", 10/3/2020.

4 - "Credit Where It's Due:  Downtown Street Fountains", 7/5/2021.  This page includes two photos for each fountain covered, one to show where the fountain is, the other to show whether it provided water.  Page 2 did the same for the only fountain it covers; below, for fountains not covered by either page 2 or page 4, I provide location shots as well as water shots.  Page 4 also identifies three models of street fountains, differing at their bases.

5 - "Foolish Mortal Tackles Street Fountains Again", 7/6/2021.  This page includes no new visits to fountains, but mentions a few and maps both downtown and North Seattle street fountains.

6 - "Today's Hike: Many water fountains turned on in areas around the University", 7/10/2021.

Summary of this week's results:

• Running strongly - 7 (6 SPU, 1 park)
• Running other than strongly - 3 (1 SPU, 2 parks)
• Stripped to their bases - 4 (2 SPU, 2 parks)
  
• Completely missing - 3 (3 SPU, 0 parks)

Here they are:

A. 501 Olive Way

At the intersection of 5th Ave, Olive Way, and Westlake Ave.  Specifically, southeast of Olive and northeast of 5th.  Previously 1 (photo, damaged beyond use), 3 (photo, same condition), 4 (photos, damaged but useable).  Several of the northernmost ones downtown, in particular this one, now have a different bowl from the models shown in previous pages, in particular the three models shown in 4.

Yesterday evening, running strongly:

B. Westlake Park

This one is on the northeast side of 4th Ave, adjacent to the park.  If SPU gave it an address, that might be 1520 4th Ave.   Previously, 1 (photo, not running), 3 (photo, not running), 4 (photos, running strongly), 5 (only mentioned).

This afternoon, running unpredictably, but this photo is from yesterday afternoon:

C. 1529 3rd Avenue

On the southwest side of 3rd Ave, southeast of Pine St.  I haven't previously mentioned this specific one to you, dear Diary.

Yesterday afternoon, completely missing:

And a location shot taken this afternoon:

D. 1520 Pike Place

Near the northern corner of Post Alley and Pike Place.  I haven't previously mentioned it to you, dear Diary.

Yesterday evening, running strongly:

And a location shot taken this afternoon, which I obviously couldn't keep as clear of people as I prefer:

E. 100 Pike St

At the north corner of 1st Ave and Pike St.  Previously, 2 (photos, 1- location and 2 - damaged beyond use), 3 (photo, same condition), 4 (no photo, running).

Yesterday evening, running weakly:

F. 1000 2nd Ave

At the north corner of 2nd Ave and Madison St.  Previously 4 (photos, running), 5 (only mentioned), 6 (no photo, running, I didn't like the taste).

Yesterday afternoon, running strongly:

G. 1398 3rd Ave

At the east corner of 3rd Ave and Union St.  Previously, 1 (photo, not running), 3 (photo, not running), 4 (photos, running strongly), 6 (no photo, running, I didn't like the taste).

Yesterday afternoon, running strongly:

H. 898 3rd Ave

At the east corner of 3rd Ave and Marion St.  Previously, 6 (photo, not running).

Yesterday afternoon, stripped to its base:

This afternoon, a location shot:

Sorry it isn't clear, dear Diary.  You can see part of the fountain base there at the bottom.  I had trouble taking this picture because someone was standing just outside the frame; I think he was a messenger waiting for another delivery order, and he showed no sign of moving until he got one.  So I settled for this.

I. 200 Columbia St

Somewhere near 2nd Ave and Columbia St, presumably on the north corner.  Previously, 6 (couldn't find it).

I couldn't find it yesterday afternoon, either.  So this afternoon I came back and walked from Cherry to Marion streets and from 1st to 3rd avenues on both sides of the street, eight blocks of walking in all, just to see whether I could find any trace of this fountain.  And I couldn't.  My two leading hypotheses are:  1) Subsequent work on the sidewalks has erased the telltale signs of a completely removed fountain; or 2) This is SPU's little joke on anyone who relies on the map.

While SPU's addresses aren't all that reliable, they aren't nearly as bad as the parks department's.  So I looked particularly hard at the north corner, and took three photos to show that the pavement on that corner and for quite a way beyond it in each direction looks quite undisturbed.

J. 298 James St

At the west corner of 3rd Ave and James St.  Previously, 6 (no photo, damaged but useable).

This afternoon, stripped to its base: 

Also this afternoon, a location shot:

Another constrained shot.  Really, downtown is a lot more crowded than it was a year ago.

K. Prefontaine Place

This one is on 3rd Ave just north of Yesler Way.  If SPU gave it an address, that might be 501 3rd Ave.  I don't think I've previously mentioned this one to you, dear Diary.

Tuesday afternoon, stripped to its base:

\

And this afternoon, a location shot:

Pioneer Square

L. East

This one is on the north side of Yesler Way just west of James St.  If SPU gave it an address, that might be 120 Yesler Way.  Previously, 4 (photo, running, no location shot) and 5 (only mentioned).

Tuesday afternoon,stripped to its base:

And, you guessed it, dear Diary!  This afternoon, a location shot:

M. West

This one is at the northeast corner of 1st Ave and Yesler Way.  If SPU gave it an address, that might be 100 Yesler Way, or 600 1st Ave.  Previously, 4 (photos, running strongly), 5 (only mentioned).

Tuesday afternoon, and this afternoon, running strongly as a spray, which isn't to say it's the light, gentle kind of spray, but the kind you want for washing an inanimate object, say, or maybe watering a garden:

N. 201 Occidental Ave (Occidental Square)

At what would have been the southwest corner of Occidental Ave S and S Washington St if the park weren't there instead.  Previously, 4 (photos, running strongly; this is the one wrongly identified there as at the north end of "Occidental Park").

Tuesday afternoon, running strongly:

O. 201 S Main St

At the northeast corner of 2nd Ave and Main St.  (That address is wrong, implying the southeast corner.)  I haven't previously mentioned this one to you, dear Diary.

Tuesday evening, running strongly:

And one last location shot taken this afternoon:

P. 398 Occidental Ave S

At the northeast corner of Occidental Ave S and S Jackson St, a block south of Occidental Square.  Previously, 4 (photos, running strongly; this is the one doubly wrongly identified there as at the south end of "Occidental Park").

Yesterday afternoon, completely missing:

Q. Hing Hay Park

Well within the park, but near Maynard Ave S, the northwest corner of Maynard and S King St.  I accidentally included what amounts to a location shot in the page that introduced Hing Hay Park a year ago.

Tuesday evening, running strongly:

And here, as a reward for anyone who's actually read all the way through this page, is a revised map.  Bright blue for running, bright red for not running.

 

And that's all for tonight, dear Diary.  Once my bus pass runs out, I hope this weekend to finish "Library Hours Six Months Later" with the last of the private libraries, and then use what appears to be a lot of dry weather coming to hike the North Seattle parks before settling down to the academic libraries perforce left over from "Six Months Later", and then a much less ambitious series "Library Hours One Year Later".  There should also be much more coming about downtown, but first, I still have about 25 places to visit there tomorrow.  (Mainly Seattle Center and Westlake Ave.)  And I don't yet know how fast I can write all these many pages up, because I don't yet know whether I'll find work quite soon, or instead become homeless again quite soon.  So happy nights and days until we meet again, dear Diary.

Library Hours Six Months Later, part XI: Yet more governmental libraries

 Dear Diary,

In April I told you about many libraries in western Washington, owned by many levels of government, and divided by whether they were more or less local (this previous part) or state or national (this one), on the basis of this database of Washington libraries courtesy of the Washington State Library.  Last month I told you that I'd found three additional lists of libraries in western Washington, in the part before this one I added a fourth, and just today, when I thought I was about to finish writing this part, found a fifth.

1. The database's equivalent in book form, 2003 (151-page PDF).
2. Ditto, 2009 (190-page PDF).
3. English Wikipedia's List of libraries in Seattle.
4. American Library Directory (ALD).
5. Federal Library Directory (FLD), in two editions:  2014 (50-page PDF) and 2012 (63-page PDF).
   

This part is about governmental libraries in those five lists that the previous parts didn't cover, plus some whose previous coverage mentions confusions which the other sources help to clear up, and some whose hours or public access provisions have changed since April.  As before, each list is in order by distance from my house according to this distance calculator.  And as before, each list consists notionally of two parts, a list of libraries that are or were open to the public without fees or appointments, each with a separate header, and then a list of other libraries headed "The rest".

All added libraries are state or federal.  Confusions, and changes since April, are across the board.  However, I've been surprised by how few changes there've been since April.  A few tribal libraries have clarified their access and hours.  One or two county law libraries have returned to opening business hours, which seems to be their norm.  Both groups, however, also include libraries still in pandemic mode and for that matter libraries without websites.  Meanwhile, state and federal libraries have often hardened requests for appointments into requirements, thus removing their buildings from the network of public restrooms.

Libraries owned by municipalities

I noted previously that I remembered that a Seattle municipal law library had closed because UW's law library was available.  None of these added sources, in particular not the 2003 and 2009 books equivalent to the database, mentions such a law library, so it's now pretty obvious that my memory really did make the whole thing up.  My memory is now claiming that the basis for the confabulation was the closure of some Municipal Reference Library, probably Chicago's when I lived there in 1993.  Seattle had one of those too, but it closed long before I got here, in 1992 (32-page PDF, pages 13-16).

Libraries owned by school districts

The previous discussion mentioned the possibility that school districts, as opposed to individual schools, might have their own libraries.  Well, it's still possible, but none of these added sources document a real example.

Libraries owned by Indian tribes

Samish Indian Nation Library

I found four tribal libraries in western Washington whose websites showed that they'd been open to the general public without fees or appointments before the pandemic or that they currently were.  None of these four has changed access hours or terms according to its website.  But in April I couldn't find the pre-pandemic hours of this library.  I still can't, but long before the pandemic, the 2003 and 2009 books agree that the Samish Indian Nation Library used to be open Mondays through Fridays, 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.  Its hours open now, per the website, remain 9 A.M. to 1 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Elhwa Library

The Lower Elhwa Klallam Tribe's Elhwa Library has had its Web page rewritten.  (Yes, this is a real change, not a mistake on my part.)  It now links to a working catalogue, clearly states hours, and clearly invites non-tribal members to visit.  It's also advertising longer actually open hours than any of the four I singled out in April presently is.  It even says:  "We are currently also considering extending our hours to provide more afternoon and evening hours."  Way to go!

Nooksack Tribal Library

This library now has its own Web page which states its hours as 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. Monday through Friday.  The page warns adults not to show up when kids are present (i.e. holidays and summer) and ideally to call first.  It doesn't clearly say that non-members may enter, but doesn't in any way hint otherwise.  (I can't be certain this page didn't exist earlier.  But in April the tribal home page's list of departments to the left didn't list or link to the library under the Education Department, as it now does; and the Internet Archive's copies of the library page all date to August.)

The rest

• Four federally recognised tribes and two not federally recognised aren't in the current database.  Similarly, neither the 2003 nor the 2009 books show anything from the Chehalis Tribe (or the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation), the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe or the Snoqualmie Tribe, nor from the Chinook Indian Nation or the Duwamish Tribe.  The Muckleshoot and Snoqualmie have King County Library System branches, the Chehalis sort of have a Timberland Regional Library branch, and since the Duwamish are centred in Seattle, they have access to lots of libraries.  I have much less of a clue where the living Chinook actually are, but for their headquarters, Timberland Regional Library's South Bend (by land) or Shoalwater Bay (by sea) branches seem closest, but not close; the Warrenton Community Library is rather nearer their land in Warrenton, Oregon.  My standard search, e.g. "Muckleshoot Tribal Library", gets the KCLS branch for the Muckleshoot, as well as what seem to be references to a tribal library from before that branch opened; for the other four it gets nothing useful.
  
• The Suquamish Tribal Library is also not in the current database, but the relevant part of this page already linked to it in April.  It's fully present in the 2003 book and has a minimal entry in the 2009 one.  (It didn't get longer treatment in April, or this time, because the linked page implies that it isn't open to the general public.)
  
• The Port Gamble S'Klallam have been listing Kitsap Regional Library's Little Boston branch as their tribal library at least since 2003.
• The Tulalip Tribes' Hibulb Cultural Center Research Library's URL has changed, but the library's physical doors are still behind a paywall.
  
• The Squaxin Island Museum, Library and Research Center was, as promised, covered in a previous part.
• In April, I noted "I don't see a building there" of the address in the database for the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe Library.  The database currently gives one address, the 2003 book another, and both buildings are now clearly present on Open Street Map.  Maybe Open Street Map has been improved, but more likely I messed up.
• The Hoh Tribal Library's Facebook page currently gives its hours, at the bottom right of its September 2022 calendar.  They open at 1 P.M. Mondays through Fridays, and close at 6 P.M. Mondays, 7 P.M. the rest.  Those hours definitely and admirably swim against the western Washington tide.
  

Libraries owned by counties

Dear Diary, all of the following were open to the public before the pandemic, but I just can't bring myself to set up that many headings for so little gain.  This directory, whose information is obviously pre-pandemic, noted public hours for all libraries in western Washington except Grays Harbor, Mason, Pacific, Skamania, Thurston and Wahkiakum counties.  Grays Harbor County Law Library now has its own Web page and actually does open to the public; the other five don't have Web pages, and I don't know that they're open to the public.  Clallam, Jefferson and Lewis counties' law libraries also don't have their own Web pages, but have pre-pandemic hours (or for Clallam County uncertain hours) open to the public listed in the directory.

Snohomish County Law Library is currently open by appointment only.

Pierce County Law Library no longer states the hours of its Tacoma main library anywhere I can find on its website, and has added a branch in Pierce County Library System's Sumner branch to those I mentioned before in the Lakewood and Gig Harbor branches.

Skagit County Law Library is currently open to the public 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. weekdays, except from noon to 1 P.M.

Whatcom County Law Library is currently open to the public 10 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Wednesdays through Fridays.

Libraries owned by public non-profits

• Both libraries originally listed under this heading are now open to the public only by appointment.  Puget Sound Regional Council's Information Center (note changed URL) now explicitly says so; I doubt it was ever open to walk-in visitors, but it previously didn't say that clearly.
  

Libraries owned by the state

Remember, dear Diary, it isn't as important, for hygiene purposes, that libraries on the capitol campus be open to the public, because Timberland Regional Library's new West Olympia branch is right near there.

Washington State Law Library

The Temple of Justice, where the Washington State Law Library normally lives, is being renovated.  The library is currently offering in its temporary new home only "curbside" service, closer to what "curbside" means to me than what Seattle Public Library did.  But if I understand correctly, it expects to re-open fully there reasonably soon.  The temporary location is in Tumwater, near the Safety and Health Video Library, Timberland Regional Library's headquarters and Tumwater branch, and the airport.

The rest

• The Puget Sound Water Quality Action Team.  This agency reported a library in the 2003 book, with an address in Lacey on the St Martin's University campus, 48.86 miles from my house.  In 2007, according to a helpful Kent Reporter column, the agency was replaced by the Puget Sound Partnership, headquartered in Olympia.  I don't know what became of the library, but wouldn't be shocked either if PSP took it to Olympia, or if it had been joined to the existing Department of Ecology library in the same building.  Note, dear Diary:  "all Ecology buildings will be open to the public" as of March 21, 2022.  So whether or not the public can consult the Ecology library, they can probably use that building's restrooms.
  
• The Office of the Attorney General under both Christine Gregoire and Rob McKenna reported institutions with the same head librarian - a law library in 2003, a research center in 2009.  I haven't found evidence of this library later than Bob Ferguson's arrival in 2013.  The 2009 address is in southeastern Lacey, 50.79 miles, in an area with few public restrooms, the nearest probably in Lacey's Rainier Vista Community Park, west.
• According to the 2003 and 2009 books, the Department of Natural Resources Building Library, mentioned previously, really is in the Department of Natural Resources Building on the capitol campus.
  
• The Computer Services Division of the Department of Information Services reported a library in both the 2003 and the 2009 books.  This library appears to have survived subsequent reorganisations, according to the LinkedIn page of the listed librarian.  The inheriting agency is in Olympia on the capitol campus, 51.62 miles, and what little evidence I've found of earlier addresses suggests similar locations.
• According to the 2003 and 2009 books, the Department of Labor and Industries Library, mentioned previously, is in fact in the department's main building in Tumwater (where the Safety and Health Video Library is too), near Timberland Regional Library's Tumwater branch etc.

Libraries owned by the nation

As I told you before, dear Diary, federal government websites love to change their URLs.  Don't expect the ones in this part to last any longer than the ones in the previous part have.

The FLD is a gold mine of information, but it can be hard to make sense of.  For example, it notes that the main NOAA library next to Magnuson Park supports only "Staff", but says the Joint Base Lewis-McChord libraries also serve the "Public".  I would've said the exact opposite; members of the public can make appointments to visit the NOAA library, but not the JBLM ones.

Much, but not all, of the difference the additional sources made for federal libraries was in starting to clarify the library systems at several military bases in western Washington.  However, FLD also added the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac to the list of prisons about whose libraries I'm not telling you, dear Diary.

But to start with:

US Courts Libraries

In April, I treated the library at the US Courthouse at 7th Ave and Stewart St downtown as undocumented, because I assumed it was the property of the district court that uses that courthouse, whose website doesn't document it.

FLD reminded me of another whole US Courthouse that I used to enjoy looking at from the 10th floor of Seattle Central Library early in my time of homelessness.  It's a gorgeous Art Deco building called the William Kenzo Nakamura US Courthouse, and according to Wikipedia it's only used these days by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, because everyone else in town (meaning, I think, the district court) uses the newer building at 7th & Stewart.

Well, it turns out the 9th Circuit considers the libraries in both buildings its property, and documents them.  At present it says both libraries are open to the public only by appointment, but in August 2017 it gave shorter hours at the new building, no specific hours at the old one, but for both "open to the public".

The new building itself is, as I said in April, open to the public reasonably generous hours, albeit with onerous restrictions.  It isn't even slightly clear to me, from a fair amount of looking at the 9th Circuit website, whether Nakamura is open to the public on any regular basis at all.  But then, like most other legal buildings in town, it's across the street from Seattle Central Library...

EPA Region 10 Library

The Environmental Protection Agency's Region 10 Library (note changed URL) has clarified its access since April:  It's "open to the public" (as before) "by appointment" (that's what's new).  Sigh.  Downtown Seattle, 4.58 miles from my house.

SBA Business Information Centers

There's astonishingly little information online about this Small Business Administration program considering that some of the few sites that mention it seem to think it's still operating.  A description dated 2002 makes it clear that these worked like libraries, and strongly suggests that the general public could visit them.  A description apparently written in 1996 claims the program was started in 1993, which suggests that it makes sense that its trail dies in the middle of George W. Bush's term as president.  Anyway, there were in 2002 BICs in downtown Seattle (listed in the 2003 book, 4.58 miles), Auburn and Mount Vernon (those two not listed).  The SBA's current Washington staff directory implies that they don't exist around here, at least, any more, and the Seattle office is currently visited by appointment only.

National Park Service libraries in Pioneer Square

A woman named Nancy Hori is attested as a Freedom of Information Act officer in Seattle, but also in a 2013 American Libraries Magazine article and on her own presumably current LinkedIn as a librarian, and in FLD she's given responsibility for the following:  Klondike Gold Rush Seattle Unit National Historical Park Library; Pacific West Regional Library Seattle; and Oakland Office Library / San Francisco Office Library.  With three different addresses.  Regional libraries with differing names and addresses but both with Hori as librarian are listed in the 2003 and the 2009 books.  No library in Seattle associated with Hori has its own Web page or is even named in a Park Service page, so I don't actually know the current physical address of any, assuming any still exist.  However, the magazine article says at least one regional one was open to the public in 2013.  Today, at a minimum, the Park Service has a visitor center in southern Pioneer Square, in the Cadillac Hotel building, which appears to offer restrooms to the general public.

Naval Undersea Museum Library

In 2003, the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, a ways north of Bremerton, 13.94 miles, listed a library across the street from it, with the museum's curator listed as librarian; the 2009 listing was much less clear and named a different librarian.  It was open to the public.  Although the museum's current main exhibit is about submarines, the library is best remembered because a retiree did research on diving there; "undersea" is meant literally, not as code for submarines.  Until March 2014, the museum's home page linked to a page generated by the library's cataloguing software; the long silence since leaves room for doubt that the library still operates.  Regardless, the museum itself is free of charge, though closed on Tuesdays.

Puget Sound Navy Museum's Frank and Louise Reh Research Center

This library in Bremerton, 15.93 miles, definitely is still operating, but by appointment only.  (It was the same way in February 2018.)  However, again, the museum is free, though closed on Tuesdays.  The research center isn't in any of my sources; the 2009 listing for the Naval Undersea Museum Library uses the name "Navy Museum Northwest Library", and when I put "Navy Museum Northwest" into Google, it sent me to this museum instead.

National Park Service library in Vancouver

National Park Service Fort Vancouver National Historic Site Library.  Found in ALD and FLD.  One page I found in half an hour of searching the website mentions the library, by saying it's only available by appointment.  As in Seattle, but here much nearer the putative library, there's a Visitor Center which is free to visit.  But actually most of the site is free to visit, and this map (1-page PDF) shows restrooms all over the place (though perhaps some are "sanican"s).  East, across I-5, from downtown Vancouver, 142.58 miles.

The rest

• NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center's Marine Mammal Laboratory Library.  From the American Library Directory and the Federal Library Directory.  It's a lab because scientists work there, not because they're dissecting orcas or any other critters; apparently they mainly study migration patterns, feeding and the like.  This has a Sand Point Way address, 3.37 miles from my house, and I'm pretty sure it's actually in the fenced and guarded National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration area northeast of Magnuson Park.  It isn't at all clear to me from the website whether visitors are allowed (and they were taking a survey when I visited, so I told them so).  As with the other NOAA library (or libraries) there, the obvious alternatives are the beach and central restrooms in Magnuson Park.
  
• OSHA Region 10 Library.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Region 10 office listed a library in both the 2003 and 2009 books, in downtown Seattle, 4.75 miles, but I can't find much trace of this library today, and the Region 10 office's role seems to have shrunk.
• Libraries associated with Naval Base Kitsap:
  • Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility Command Library.  This is the name as given both at the libraries database and at ALD of the library I referred to as "naval engineering" (note lowercase) in April.  (In the 2003 book it's called "Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Engineering Library", but I definitely hadn't seen that book by then.)  I'm not confident I've found the "Command Library" name anywhere else; "Engineering Library" seems more common, but not more authoritative.  By whatever actual name, the library is on the main base that fronts on Sinclair Inlet, 16.56 miles.
    
  • Naval Base Bremerton Recreation Center.  An ALD find.  Also on the main base but a bit further inland, 16.80 miles.  Definitely not open to the public.
    
  • Naval Hospital Bremerton's Knowledge Management Department.  Another ALD find, also attested in a 2012 Kitsap Sun article (which makes it clear that this wasn't then just a medical library) and in the 2003 and 2009 books.  In a different naval area in Bremerton, facing Ostrich Bay, 17.76 miles.  Although I don't have any evidence, I suspect there's still some sort of not exclusively medical library on this part of the base.
  • Naval Submarine Base Bangor Liberty Center.  In the southern part of that base, but well north of Bremerton, coincidentally also 17.76 miles.  Listed in the 2003 and 2009 books.  Definitely not open to the public, and not even to all sailors, near as I can tell.
• Naval Station Everett Resource Center.  Not in any of my sources; found by poking around in the sites ALD pointed me to for the previous listings.  Open to all who have US Department of Defense cards.  22.32 miles.
• The additional sources made the physical locations of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord libraries much clearer to me.  They're all relatively close to northern borders of the immense base area.  (It's reputedly smaller than Washington's smallest county, but I don't believe that.)  Remember, dear Diary, as I told you in April, visiting the Joint Base isn't easy; perhaps as a result, the individual libraries' pages don't specify who has access the way the naval ones earlier in this list do. 
  • The base library nearest my house is the VA Hospital's medical library, on the northern side of American Lake not far from a part of Lakewood also on the northern shore, 38.44 miles.  The visitor's page calls that part of the base Lewis North.
    
  • Next comes McChord Library, actually relatively far from the local northern border of the base, in the southwestern part of McChord Field, with McChord Air Museum not too far to the east, and a salient of Lakewood's Tillicum neighbourhood not too far to the west.  38.81 miles.
    
  • Then Madigan Army Medical Center's Medical Library.  But the 2003 book also listed a "Madigan Community Library" as a branch of the base library system.  It's described as relatively medically focused anyway, but its purpose was to get books and magazines to patients.  It clearly no longer exists, but I don't know whether that's because delivery methods improved, because the hospital needed the space, or because of random bureaucratic changes.  Anyway, Madigan is south of Tillicum, 40.51 miles.
  • Book Patch Children's Library and Grandstaff Library are in the same building, southeast of DuPont, 42.01 miles.
  • Finally, both the 2003 and 2009 books listed a Crittenberger Library, which apparently specialised in non-English materials.  At both times, Grandstaff was reputed to contain a Career Information Center.  Now Google, handed the word Crittenberger, immediately suggests that building's Career Center.  The closure of the Crittenberger Library was reported as imminent in 2010.  The location is as deep in the base as these libraries go, just east of Gray Army Airfield, 42.05 miles.
• Naval Air Station Whidbey Island's Convergence Zone Recreation Center is listed in the ALD, but doesn't mention books in its Web page as the naval centers listed above do in theirs.  It also doesn't list qualifications required to enter as those do, but I'd be pretty astonished to learn that a homeless person could use its restrooms.  It's near Ault Field, north of Oak Harbor, 48.98 miles.
• National Park Service libraries in Olympic National Park.  FLD lists two, an Olympic National Park Collection Library and an Olympic National Park Visitor Center Library, both with mailing address in Port Angeles, and so, I presume, to be identified with the Park Headquarters actually at that address (59.09 miles), and the Visitor Center (and Wilderness Information Center) nearby (58.72 miles).  Unlike the locations in Seattle and Vancouver, however, this park (which is bigger than nine of the nineteen counties in western Washington) charges admission, so I can't really assume its visitor center (let alone its headquarters) can help with homeless people's needs.
• Possibly a National Park Service library in North Cascades National Park, which is bigger than eight counties in western Washington.  The reason this library isn't singled out above is that FLD considers it the work, not of a park bigwig (as in Olympic), but of a summer ranger and year-round artist who lives in Chelan County near the park.  In other words, I don't have a clue whether this library, as undocumented as all the National Parks libraries, is in western Washington as I've defined it throughout this page.  At any rate, since this park is free to enter (though not to camp in), I should note that the visitor centers listed in the linked page sort thus by county: 
  • Whatcom: North Cascades Visitor Center (near Newhalem), Glacier Public Service Center (near Glacier, 85.72 miles) and Skagit Information Center (in Newhalem, about 85 miles). 
  • Skagit: Park and Forest Information Center (in Sedro-Woolley, nowhere near the actual park, 57.62 miles) and Wilderness Information Center (near Marblemount, 72.08 miles). 
  • Chelan: Golden West Visitor Center (Stehekin, about 87 miles).
  • Okanogan: Methow Valley Ranger Station (Winthrop, 114.68 miles). 
  I assume, but do not know, that all have publicly accessible restrooms when staffed.  Not all are staffed during the winter.  It isn't at all clear to me whether the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center near Diablo, about 91 miles, which professes to have a "research library" that doesn't get its own page, and which appears to be open from March to November each year, would allow use of either its books or its restrooms without payment.
  
• The medical library of the VA Hospital in Vancouver.  As noted previously, it's across the street from Clark College, northeast, across I-5, from downtown Vancouver, 141.64 miles.

Whew.  Dear Diary, I hope within a day or two to finish a comparable, but much longer, part catching up with private libraries, but trust this will be enough for now.  I foresee that being the last part of "Library Hours Six Months Later", but intend then to do some mapping and analysis if time allows.  Happy days and/or nights until we meet again.

Library Hours Six Months Later, part X: The Ocean Shores Public Library and a Foolish Mortal

Dear Diary,

How are you?

I've been having an eventful time getting and losing temporary jobs so fast that I haven't even been able to investigate the parks near them.  This has led me to work a lot on my resume, and since you're fairly prominent on that resume, I've been getting back to work on you, too.  I have basically three items on my agenda for you between now and when the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation shuts down water fountains and some restrooms for winter.

1. I want to do a water fountain hike of North Seattle.  (For the Seattle parks, that implies restrooms too; there are no parks at least in North Seattle with restrooms but not water fountains.  In Tacoma, it's the opposite, which strikes me as really weird.)  The last time I did a complete North Seattle survey was January 2021, and the last time not in winter was October 2020.  It's past due.  In particular, I think there should be no more lingering effects of the Durkan droughts of 2020 and 2021, so I want to establish what I think of as a baseline against which to measure deterioration or improvement going forward, most immediately this winter.  (I'm waiting with bated breath to see whether the city tries to lie again about restrooms open this winter, and whether the King County Regional Homelessness Authority will co-operate in such lying as the City of Seattle's homelessness office did in 2020-2021, or put forward its own lying or truthful list or map.)  This hiking has been held up while my budget has been in chaos, because I prefer to make the relevant photos with a newspaper front page in view, for purposes of providing evidence of the photo's date.  But, if only because I'm tired of getting fat by not hiking, I'm pretty sure I can now buy a few newspapers.
   
2. I want to continue last autumn's series on the parks of Seattle's downtown.  I had grandiose plans to survey also the parks near downtown, for reasons the rest of the downtown series would have made clear; I don't know whether I'll carry those out, but the main downtown series itself should be completed, and not just the artist credits I've specifically promised.  Some of that work should probably wait a while, but other parts of it are best done this month, while I have a bus pass going to waste.
   
3. I've also promised to return to library hours, specifically in October 2022, which is now, um, nine days away.  (The Seattle Public Library hasn't yet announced hours changes for autumn, but I'm guessing October may be different in that regard; that's one reason for waiting.)  Before that, I want to finish the treatment of private, non-academic libraries adumbrated in the previous library part.

Which brings us to today's topic.   The last paragraph of the previous part mentioned (and linked to) three additional lists I wanted to consult for private, non-academic libraries.  Two of these are older book versions of the Washington State Library's library database covering the state of Washington, whose current version has been my main source listing western Washington libraries in this page.

However, the third is an English Wikipedia article listing libraries in Seattle alone.  Just over half of the libaries listed are private and not academic.  Although the article claims to be based on two sources, all footnotes to the list itself refer to only one of these, and while working on the relevant libraries, I finally got curious.

American Library Directory is a catalogue of libraries in the US, Canada, and possibly other places.  Wikipedia cites it as a physical book, but like the Washington State catalogue, it's gone database.  Its subscription rates are high (the cheapest is $749), but it offers libraries' names and addresses for free.

So yesterday I worked on what I thought a pretty good list of private, non-academic libraries.  But last night on a whim I went through the American Library Directory catalogue.  I found ten private, non-academic libraries in western Washington that weren't in my other sources.  Also six governmental libraries, all federal.  Two academic ones.

The Ocean Shores Public Library

And today's topic, one public one.  My only significant source for public (and governmental) libraries was the Washington State Library database, and apparently one public library in western Washington doesn't talk to the Washington State Library.

That library is Ocean Shores Public Library, which is indeed two blocks from the ocean in a city surrounded on three sides by the ocean, in Grays Harbor County.

It already had relatively short hours in February 2020:  11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, closed Sundays and Mondays.  It has followed a unique pattern, for public libraries in western Washington, in changing those hours since then:  it's increased its total hours and its weekend hours, but not changed its morning hours and decreased its evening hours.  That is, it's now open 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 4 P.M. Sundays, and closed Mondays.

(To repeat, my definitions for these hours categories are:  Morning hours are from opening to 3 P.M. Mondays through Fridays.  Evening hours are from 3 P.M. to closing Mondays through Thursdays.  And weekend hours are from 3 P.M. Friday to opening Monday.  By these standards, Ocean Shores Public Library is now at 103% of its pre-pandemic total hours, 100% of morning hours, 67% of evening hours, and 150% of weekend hours.)

The more general pattern of making up for cuts in evening hours by expanding weekend hours is common around here, but other libraries doing that have also expanded morning hours.  My interpretation of that is that librarians are probably coming in around 9 A.M. anyway, so cutting evening hours but expanding morning hours basically shortens the time the library is occupied, and is cosmetically, but not, for most patrons, actually, a fair trade.  Ocean Shores isn't playing such games.

The library's patron code of conduct (weird format which my Linux computer interprets as a picture) consists of the following sentence:  "Library staff will intervene to stop illegal, unsafe, disruptive, and inappropriate activities and behaviors."  Plus a list of "Illegal Behavior" that doesn't include any of the rules that usually trip up homeless people.  So although "inappropriate" gives the librarians lots of leeway, it doesn't look like they're specifically out to bar homeless people.

The City of Ocean Shores website doesn't seem to have anything about actual homeless people in town; search it for them, and one gets programs meant to prevent homelessness.  The January 2020 point-in-time count was in Aberdeen, 16.93 miles from the Ocean Shores Public Library according to this distance calculator, which also says the library is 100.66 miles from my house.  That 2020 count found somewhat over 100 homeless people supposedly in the county but, I think, in Aberdeen and nearby.  Casting further doubt on this number, a report in April 2018 to the Ocean Shores City Council, well documented in a North Coast News story, mentioned 44 specifically in Ocean Shores (plus an additional 110 couch-surfers and such).  The city took action in 2021 when it understood Martin v. City of Boise and some state laws as constraining it; what it did is in this 24 page PDF, while some attitudes involved are in this Aberdeen Daily World story.

When looking at other libraries' lists of reciprocal borrowing agreements in April, I found none listing the Ocean Shores Public Library, and the latter's own borrowing policy doesn't mention any.  I suspect the city's physical isolation is behind this go-it-alone approach; the contrary possibility is that it isn't really that isolated, and it's unable to afford its residents running up bills to Timberland Regional Library and maybe other systems.  The Ocean Shores library does sell cards on a quarterly or annual basis to non-residents, and TRL, it turns out, sells what it describes as "regular" cards to residents of Ocean Shores (as well as Mossyrock, Napavine, Pe Ell, and Vader, all in Lewis County).

While verifying that I wouldn't have still more egg on my face by omitting the Mossyrock Public Library, etc., I came across still a third list of Washington public libraries, maintained by the Municipal Resources Service Center whose own non-public library was covered in a previous part.  I went through the libraries it lists for the nineteen counties in western Washington that this very long page has tried to cover, and sure enough, it added another public library about which I hadn't known, the Roy City Library in Pierce County.  However, it turns out this library closed in 2018; the MRSC was also misinformed in that case.

Today I expect to get back to working on the private libraries, but at some point I'll also do what I can with the six extra federal ones.  And I hope to have other pages to write in you as well, soon, dear Diary.  Happy days and nights until then.

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

Dear Diary,

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

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

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

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

The possibly open ones

Documented at the owner's website

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

Documented on the Web

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

The uncertain ones

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

Documented at the owner's website

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

Documented on the Web

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

Documented only at the libraries database

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

The probably closed ones

Documented at the owner's website

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

Documented on the Web

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

Documented only at the libraries database

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

The interloper

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

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

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

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