Saturday, October 7, 2023

Public Library Hours, Autumn 2023, part II: Seattle and Nearby

Dear Diary,

This part of this year's page about public libraries covers Seattle Public Library and eight other libraries with which it has reciprocal borrowing agreements.  All of these libraries were fully covered in April 2022, so I'm basically just updating you, dear Diary.  (I'll explain what I mean by "fully covered" in the next part.)  Coincidentally, or more likely not coincidentally, all public libraries within thirty miles of my house are covered by SPL's reciprocal borrowing agreements.  Some of these libraries (but not SPL) also offer cards unilaterally, but none participate in any one card systems.

Previous pages and parts of pages relevant to this part:

Contents of this part:

Seattle Public Library

The Seattle Public Library before the pandemic had four schedules.  For a library system of its size in western Washington, that's unusually few, and when re-opening began, SPL did as other large systems nearby (with much larger service areas), specifically Sno-Isles Libraries and Timberland Regional Library, have always done.  It had thirteen schedules in October 2021, twelve in April 2022, and *fifteen* in October 2022.  I've been mocking this practice the whole time, and whether or not anyone at SPL has read any of that mockery, the library has, this year, somewhat reduced the complexity.  It now has (or at least, had as of September 30) four tiers of schedules, and seven schedules total.

  • Libraries open 62 hours per week all keep the same schedule:  they're open ten hours Tuesdays through Thursdays, 10 A.M. to 8 P.M., and eight hours Fridays through Mondays, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M.  These libraries are Central, Ballard, Broadview, Capitol Hill, Douglass-Truth, Greenwood, High Point, International District/Chinatown, Lake City and South Park.
  • Libraries open 56 hours per week are all open eight hours every day of the week, all of which are 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. except for two days noon to 8 P.M.  They have three schedules that differ as to which days they're open late.
    • Beacon Hill, Northgate and Wallingford have late days Tuesdays and Thursdays.
    • Columbia, Queen Anne, Southwest and West Seattle have late days Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
    • And Delridge, NewHolly (!), Northeast and Rainier Beach have late days Wednesdays and Thursdays.  (Northeast, which is my temporary base library while the Green Lake branch is closed, is itself closing for HVAC upgrades from November 1 through December 10, unless the upgrades run longer than scheduled, which would be terribly surprising, wouldn't it, dear Diary?  But for now Northeast is open.)
  • Libraries open 48 hours per week are all closed Mondays and open eight hours per day the rest of the week, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. except for two days noon to 8 P.M.  They have two schedules that differ as to which days they're open late.
    • Fremont, Madrona-Sally Goldmark, Montlake and University have late days Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
    • Magnolia has late days Tuesdays and Thursdays.
  • And Green Lake is closed for seismic renovations.

What this adds up to is that SPL has actually pulled ahead of its total pre-pandemic hours per week, even with Green Lake closed, and will remain ahead even when Northeast closes too.  (No branches were closed on March 6, 2020.) It's now open 1476 hours weekly, whereas before the pandemic it was open 1403.  As to which hours:  morning, 561 versus 522; evening, 421 versus 488; weekend, 494 versus 393.  (One of the main drivers of the increase is that whereas, before the pandemic, the difference between Central Library's schedule and that of the biggest branches was in Sunday hours - Central had five, the others four - now all branches have eight hours on Sundays.)

Credit where it's due:  This set of hours arguably has several advantages over the pre-pandemic set.  All branches are open at least eight hours every day they're open, whereas half used to open for just seven hours per day at most.  Only five are closed any day of the week, versus nine back then.  The longer Sunday hours are an obvious win.  And the library has somewhat re-shuffled its pre-pandemic hierarchy of libraries, most obviously, again, in the case of NewHolly.

On the other hand, SPL was, a year ago, one of the few libraries of any kind that was preserving evening hours as much as morning ones; now it isn't.

Still, if Seattle Public Library really can't stand to return to the simplicity of its pre-pandemic schedule, and if it really can't buck the trend toward inconveniencing students, at least it's given us some good things in return.

SPL's Rules of Conduct still has a 2015 last-modified date.  Its library card eligibility discussion doesn't strike me as obviously new, and is still better than many other public libraries' versions.  SPL has reciprocal borrowing agreements, obviously, but does not offer cards unilaterally.  However, it currently strongly implies that, for it, reciprocal borrowing agreements are transitive.  That is, it says "You can also get a free Seattle Public Library card if you have a current Library card from" [list of agreements].  I suspect this is just clumsy writing, but as written, it implies that, for example, people who live in Jefferson County, who aren't covered by any of SPL's agreements, can bring in their Kitsap Regional Library cards and get SPL cards anyway.

King County Library System

At some time in 2019, King County Library System had thirteen schedules, but only four were schedules for more than one library.  (With 50 branches, it wouldn't be especially surprising for a few to have distinctive schedules, though nine strikes me as high.)  In April 2022, KCLS had eight schedules; in October 2022, ten.  Now (or anyway October 1)?  It's back to eight.

  • The Redmond Ridge location in unincorporated Union Hill-Novelty Hill (near Redmond) is open 112 hours per week, as it has been every time I've looked.  However, getting into it has always required a library card (so it wasn't open to the general public before the pandemic, and still isn't), and it has no restrooms.  I've never counted its hours in my KCLS totals, and don't do so this time.
  • Most of the other schedules are variations on a single theme: 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays; noon to 8 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays; and 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. weekends. Specifically:
    • Two libraries in Bellevue, the main Bellevue branch and the one in Crossroads Mall, are open 56 hours per week.  They accomplish this by being open both weekend days, and also opening at 11 A.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  I strongly suspect the City of Bellevue is paying KCLS to do this.  NB two other branches in Bellevue (Lake Hills and Newport Way) don't have such hours variations.
    • The Auburn, Bothell, Burien, Duvall, Enumclaw, Federal Way, Issaquah, Kent, Kingsgate, Redmond, Renton, Shoreline, Snoqualmie, Tukwila and Woodmont branches are all open 54 hours per week, all seven days on the base schedule given above.  Notice that many of these have the names of relatively populous suburbs (and Kingsgate and Woodmont are in Kirkland and Des Moines respectively, more populous suburbs).  The Bothell branch's restrooms are closed, so I'm not counting that branch's hours in the KCLS totals.  (A reason may be given at KCLS's website, but since KCLS floods every single page at its site with data Google interprets as saying the same thing about that branch's restrooms, I can't find that reason.  But at the Bothell branch's Facebook page, Facebook allowed me to read that the restrooms have been demolished so as to build better ones.)
    • 28 branches are open 47 hours per week; they follow the base schedule given above but are closed Sundays.  They are Algona-Pacific, Black Diamond, Boulevard Park, Carnation, Covington, Des Moines, Fall City, Federal Way 320th, Kenmore, Kent Panther Lake, Kirkland, Lake Forest Park, Lake Hills, Maple Valley, Mercer Island, Muckleshoot (on the Muckleshoot Reservation), Newcastle, Newport Way, North Bend, Renton Highlands, Richmond Beach, Sammamish, Skyway (in an unincorporated area between Seattle and Renton), South Center, Valley View, Vashon, White Center (in the well-known unincorporated area between Seattle and Burien) and Woodinville.
    • And the Greenbridge branch (also in unincorporated White Center) is open 39 hours per week, closed both Sundays and Mondays.
  • The Fairwood branch (Fairwood is an unincorporated area near Renton) had its HVAC system wrecked by people who both stole and vandalised.  So it's currently open 49 hours per week, 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Thursdays through Mondays, 1 P.M. to 8 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  And its restrooms are closed, so again, I'm not counting these hours in the KCLS totals below.
  • The KCLS Service Center in Issaquah is open 40 hours per week, 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Mondays through Fridays, closed Saturdays and Sundays.  As best I understand, this may under some circumstances be open to the public, but not for restroom use by passersby.  I actually did count this last October by mistake, but otherwise have left it out of my numbers and am doing so this time again.
  • And the Skykomish branch, the only one in eastern King County, is open (as it has been each time I've looked) 21 hours per week, closed Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, 1 P.M. to 8 P.M. Tuesdays, and 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.  In 2019 the schedule was 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Tuesdays and Saturdays, and 1 P.M. to 7 P.M. Thursdays, so this is a cut of one evening hour, an increase of two weekend hours, and mainly, a total increase of one hour.

Given the four locations I'm not counting, KCLS is currently 640 hours below its 2019 total (which doesn't include Kent Panther Lake, which opened after then), 2244 now, 2884 then.  (103 hours of the 640 are the Bothell and Fairwood branches whose restrooms are closed.)  It was open 1151 morning hours, now 951; 1110 evening hours, now 722; and 617 weekend hours, now 571.

One other thing about KCLS hours.  In April 2022 I predicted that its policy of giving most branches one weekend day open, which resulted in many branches opening on Sundays for the first time, would lead to protests when it moved closer to its regular schedule later.   Well, this time the following branches, which had been open Sundays during 2022 but not in 2019, no longer have Sunday hours:  Black Diamond, Federal Way 320th, Kenmore, Skyway and White Center.  Also, some libraries that did have Sunday hours in 2019, and also during 2022, lost them in 2023:  Des Moines, Kirkland, Lake Hills, Mercer Island, Newport Way, Renton Highlands and Sammamish.  Funny thing, dear Diary:  I didn't hear about any protests.  Did you?  Oops.

KCLS's Patron Code of Conduct still has a 2017 last-modified date.  Its library cards page now clarifies the limited cards they offer certain people; it previously (up to a few days ago) wasn't documented at their website.  So here, at last, it is:

"Temporary residents staying longer than one month but less than six months may get a Visitor Card with a five-item checkout limit.

"Individuals without a residence who can present a Photo ID and either a mailing address or phone number, may be issued a “Limited Checkout” library card. This card allows the placement of holds, access the public computers, the check out of five items, and has an expiration date of 12 months (which can be renewed)."

OK, so now I do know why my checkouts were limited while I was homeless, but before that, when I lived in an SRO, they were limited too.  Is that because KCLS is under the delusion that SRO residents are "staying less than six months", or is it because they figure SRO residents don't actually have residences?  Or does the above text represent a policy change from that time?  (It was, after all, over eleven years ago.)

As is the case for SPL, KCLS also has reciprocal borrowing agreements (several more than SPL does, actually), but doesn't offer cards unilaterally.

Sno-Isle Libraries

The Sno-Isle Libraries had, sometime in 2019, thirteen schedules for their twenty-three branches, not counting their bookmobile or their service center.  They also had thirteen schedules in April 2022, but twelve in October 2022 and now (that is, October 2).  As before, this can be simplified.

  • Nineteen of the branches are open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.  They vary in two ways:  whether they're open 1 P.M. to 5 P.M. Sundays, and which hours they're open Mondays through Thursdays.
    • The Lynnwood, Marysville, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo, Oak Harbor and Snohomish branches are open 9 A.M. to 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, and open Sundays, for a total of 64 hours per week.
    • The Mill Creek branch is open 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, and open Sundays, for a total of 60 hours per week.
    • The Stanwood branch is open 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays and Thursdays, 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and open Sundays, for a total of 58 hours per week.
    • The Arlington, Granite Falls, Lake Stevens and Monroe branches are open 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, and are open Sundays, for a total of 56 hours per week.
    • The Mariner branch is open the same hours except that it's closed Sundays, for a total of 52 hours per week.
    • The Langley branch is open 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. Mondays and Wednesdays, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Tuesdays and Thursdays, and closed Sundays, for a total of 50 hours per week.
    • The Sultan branch is open the same number of hours, but its late days are Mondays and Tuesdays.
    • The Camano Island and Darrington branches are open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays and closed Sundays, for a total of 48 hours per week.
    • The Brier branch is open 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. Tuesdays through Thursdays, closed Sundays and Mondays, for a total of 40 hours per week.
    • The Clinton branch is open the same days and number of hours, but 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Tuesdays through Thursdays.
  • The Coupeville and Freeland branches are open 56 hours per week, 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 P.M. to 5 P.M. Sundays.
  • The Edmonds branch is still mostly closed (due to flooding, which prompted an extensive remodel), but at the moment, some events are displacing it from the room within the library that it's usually using to the building nearby whose restrooms library patrons have been referred to this whole time.  Last October that nearby building didn't offer any weekend restroom access, but now it apparently does.  Hours for the Edmonds branch while the current situation obtains:  44 total, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays through Fridays and 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. Saturdays.  They expect to move back to the situation reported last October soon, then re-open the whole building sometime around New Year's.
  • The Lakewood/Smokey Point branch, which opened in 2018 in a "temporary" storefront location, has usually been closed Sundays and Mondays, but is now also closed Fridays.  The days it is open, it's open 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. for a total of 32 hours.  This looked to me like a staffing issue, and in fact, this past spring, a job was being advertised there, but I don't know that that's all it is.

Sno-Isles Libraries are open fewer hours now than they were last October.  Camano Island has returned to its pre-pandemic total hours, which had expanded then; Edmonds is sharply down at the moment; so is Lakewood/Smokey Point.  There haven't been any compensating hours increases anywhere.  So I show 1246 total hours, versus 1295 in 2019; 590 versus 583 morning hours; 352 versus 395 evening ones; and 304 versus 317 weekend ones.  What SIL has been spending money on, instead of hours increases, is renovations.  Besides Edmonds, Darrington just got a remodel, and Arlington and Lake Stevens are in the planning stages.  For all I know, SIL has more construction activity than that going on.  Now, I'm aware that most places, construction is differently budgeted from operating expenses, but I think at the very least, the focus of SIL management hasn't been on hours.  Perhaps they're satisfied with the hours they now have.

The SIL Customer Conduct Policy still has a 2020 last-modified date.   It remains true that none of their pages relevant to getting a library card - one, two, three - mention to their patrons their reasonably numerous reciprocal borrowing agreements.  This appears to be because SIL does offer cards unilaterally; among "Eligible Groups & Individuals" at the page labelled "two" above, it lists:  "Residents or property owners of jurisdictions within Washington State that provide equitable tax support for public library services."  However, while this tells Washingtonians who's eligible for an SIL card, it tells SIL patrons nothing about what other cards they're eligible for.  As a public service, therefore, I'm presenting a list of public libraries in Washington (not just western Washington) that either explicitly say they have reciprocal borrowing agrements with SIL, or (in the case of the Everett Public Library) say so by strong implication, with links to the places where these things are said.

Maybe SIL didn't want to update its list after its agreement (7-page PDF from 2016, see page 6) with Whatcom County Library System went away (21-page PDF from 2020, see page 5).  Or perhaps it doesn't want to budget for its users going elsewhere.  Regardless, that's the list I can compile; I don't know whether SIL has other agreements, with other libraries that prefer to hide them.  Because, as we already saw in April 2022 and will see again this time, dear Diary, SIL is hardly the only library that hides its agreements.  But it is, in western Washington, much the biggest.

Kitsap Regional Library

The Kitsap Regional Library just before the lockdowns had seven schedules for its nine branches.  It's followed the opposite trajectory from SPL thereafter, with two schedules in April 2022, three in October 2022, and now (October 3) four.

  • The Bainbridge Island, Port Orchard, Poulsbo, Silverdale and Sylvan Way branches are open 48 hours per week, 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays and Thursdays, 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays.
  • The Kingston branch is open the same schedule except that it closes at 6 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, for 46 total hours per week.
  • The Little Boston branch (on the Port Gamble S'Klallam Reservation) and the Manchester branch are open the same schedule as Kingston, except only 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. on Saturdays, for 43 total hours per week.
  • And the downtown Bremerton branch is closed.  Even though it was last renovated in 2019, it's been closed for HVAC replacement since July.  It's scheduled to re-open, and may actually re-open, in November.

So KRL too has fewer hours than last time, although all branches still open have increased hours.  It's currently open 372 hours per week, as against 436 before the pandemic; 200 morning hours, 198 then; 106 evening hours, 140 then; and 66 weekend hours, 100 then.  If downtown Bremerton actually does re-open in November, it may re-open to the third schedule listed above; it was on the equivalent schedule a year ago.  In that case, the numbers would instead be 415 (an increase of thirty from last October), 225 (same as last October), 118 (up 26!), and 72 (up four).  I mentioned KRL last time as one of the heroes standing against the current trend toward the reduction of evening hours, and am very glad to see them continuing to do so.

KRL's Standards for Patron Conduct has the same July 2022 revision date that I talked about last October.  I assume their getting a library card page has changed as part of their switch to BiblioCommons, but it continues to be clear.  It offers cards unilaterally, but doesn't promise them:  "You are eligible for a library card if you live or work in Kitsap County or own property. Additionally, residents of Washington state living in areas that support public libraries may also apply."  I've already linked the page on which they list their reciprocal borrowing agreements, above sv SIL.

Everett Public Library

The Everett Public Library has only two branches, which greatly simplifies discussing its hours.  On March 5, 2020 the two branches had the same hours (see the page's footer); their hours haven't been the same since they re-opened, though.

  • The Main Library is now open 52 hours per week:  10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and 10 A.M. to 8 P.M. Tuesdays and Thursdays.  It's closed Sundays.
  • The Evergreen branch is currently on the same schedule except that it's closed Mondays, for a total of 44 hours per week.

So it's currently (October 3) open 96 hours per week, as against 114 before the pandemic.  Morning hours, 45 of 50; evening, 29 of 36; weekend, 22 of 28.  EPL has cut its hours in the past year.

Well, that was brief.  But EPL approved a new version of its Rules of Conduct already in late September of last year; presumably it wasn't yet online when I researched this page's predecessor.  It's a really massive change; nothing I quoted in either April or October 2022 is still there.

In their previous policy, EPL explicitly had a hygiene rule, a camping ban, a sleeping ban, a grooming ban, and a ban on unattended personal property.  I also quoted  sections of the rules that I thought at least came close to loitering bans and box rules (that is, the two main kinds of "gotcha" rules where homeless people are concerned).

Their new policy is very different.  I no longer see anything I can interpret as a hygiene rule, a camping ban, a sleeping ban, a loitering ban (!), or a grooming ban.  One phrase - "Keep personal property nearby without obstructing ..." could be stretched into a combination ban on unattended property and quasi-box rule.  For an example of the rest, the closest thing to a hygiene rule - which, historically, has been about perfume as much as it's been about homeless people - is "Conduct must never endanger the health and safety of other library users".  Since I think hygiene rules make a lot of sense - I made considerable efforts, while homeless, to mitigate the effects my poor hygiene had on others - I think EPL may have gone too far, but they've certainly changed their approach.  And it's a little hard for me to believe that they didn't recognise that in doing so, they were showing a very different attitude towards homeless people.

(I've visited downtown Everett a few times this year.  It is extremely full of such signs as "No trespassing", "No public restrooms", "Emphasis zone" and so forth.  EPL is not only changing its own self-presentation, but massively swimming against the general tide here, whether they know it or not.)

EPL is the first library listed in this page that doesn't use BiblioCommons.  It doesn't explicitly list its reciprocal borrowing agreements, but its library card page strongly implies that its entire list is still SPL, KCLS, and SIL.  It doesn't offer cards unilaterally.

Tacoma Public Library

The Tacoma Public Library restored most of its branches to their pre-pandemic schedules over a year ago.  It currently (October 3) has three schedules.

  • The seven branches proper - Fern Hill, Kobetich, Moore, Mottet, South Tacoma, Swasey and Wheelock - all have the same schedule:  closed Sundays and Mondays, noon to 8 P.M. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. Thursdays through Saturdays, totalling 40 hours per week.
  • The Main Library has been under construction since re-opening began, and that's meant the entire time that its restrooms were closed.  It was nevertheless keeping reasonably full hours in the previous two updates, but at the moment the only way to get into the Main Library for most people is to make an appointment to see the Northwest Room; appointments appear to be available Wednesday evenings and Saturdays.  And as far as I know the restrooms are still closed.  I haven't counted the Main Library towards TPL's re-opening yet; if I do another update next year, maybe then.
  • The Eastside Community Center offers some sort of library access two hours per week, Tuesday middays, without restrooms associated with TPL.  So I haven't counted it even for pre-pandemic totals.

Because, shortly before the pandemic, the Main Library's hours were reduced to match those of the branches, TPL remains frozen at seven-eighths re-opening:  280 out of 320 total, 112 out of 128 morning, 91 out of 104 evening, and 77 out of 88 weekend.

TPL's "Rules of Behavior Governing the Use of Tacoma Public Library Facilities" (4-page PDF) and "Rules of Behavior Governing the Use of Library Public Restrooms" (2-page PDF) have last-modified dates of 2015 and 2011 respectively, but were actually reinstated to TPL's website last year after a discussion which someone I spoke with hoped would have a different outcome.  Tacoma Public Library still has an "unverified" card probably meant largely for homeless people: "For users who have expired ID, cannot provide proof of address or are living in temporary or transitional housing".  As in Everett, so in Tacoma there are few reciprocal borrowing agreements, and cards aren't offered unilaterally.

Timberland Regional Library

This is the only library in this page whose location may not be obvious to someone tolerably familiar with western Washington's geography.  Timberland Regional Library's base is Thurston County; it also runs all the libraries in Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason and Pacific counties, and all but one in Pacific Grays Harbor County.  (Edits October 10.  Mason County is where TRL's closest branches to Seattle are, as the crow flies.)  TRL's service area is sort of a band across western Washington between Puget Sound and the Columbia River.

Before the pandemic, TRL had 38 locations, of which 29 had restrooms.  (The other nine were kiosks and book return bins.)  Those 29 had 23 schedules.  It was a non-BiblioCommons library that didn't have a single-page hours list, but miraculously, someone got the Internet Archive to save most of its branch pages March 2, 2020.  Now it has 36 locations, of which 31 have restrooms.  Last year, both in April and in October, it had 26 schedules.  Now (or anyway October 3)?  25.  This is obviously too many to handle in text, dear Diary, so I'm going to do what TRL ought to do and present a table.

LocationCountyMonTueWedThuFriSatSunTotal
SheltonMason9-69-69-69-69-69-610-460
Hawks PrairieThurston10-610-610-610-610-610-610-656
West OlympiaThurston10-610-610-610-610-610-610-656
TumwaterThurston9-69-69-69-69-69-6-54
AberdeenGrays Harbor10-610-610-610-610-610-6-48
CentraliaLewis10-610-610-610-610-610-6-48
LaceyThurston10-610-610-610-610-610-6-48
OlympiaThurston10-610-610-610-610-610-6-48
HoquiamGrays Harbor-9-69-69-69-69-6-45
North MasonMason-9-69-610-710-710-5-43
MontesanoGrays Harbor-9-69-69-610-510-5-41
ElmaGrays Harbor-10-610-69-59-59-5-40
ChehalisLewis-10-610-610-610-610-6-40
Ocean ParkPacific-10-610-610-69-59-5-40
Shoalwater Bay Tribal
Community Library		Pacific-9-59-59-59-59-5-40
YelmThurston-10-610-610-610-610-6-40
RaymondPacific-10-610-610-610-610-5-39
WinlockLewis-10-610-610-610-510-5-38
IlwacoPacific-10-610-610-610-510-5-38
WestportGrays Harbor-9-49-49-49-49-4-35
SalkumLewis-10-5Noon-7Noon-710-510-5-35
TeninoThurston-10-510-510-510-510-5-35
PackwoodLewis-10-610-5-10-59-5-30
Mountain ViewLewis-10-510-610-5-10-5-29
HoodsportMason-10-510-5-10-610-5-29
Amanda ParkGrays Harbor-10-510-510-5-10-5-28
McClearyGrays Harbor-10-510-511-7-10-4-28
OakvilleGrays Harbor-11-610-5-10-510-5-28
South BendPacific10-510-5-10-510-5--28
NasellePacific10-6-10-6-10-6--24
Administrative CenterThurston8-58-58-58-58-5--0

Amanda Park is on the Quinault Reservation.

The page for the Administrative Center in Tumwater now carries a note saying it "remains CLOSED to the public until further notice"; that note wasn't there in March 2020.  I know why it was added, but why is it still there?

To sum up, then.  Before the pandemic, TRL was open 1074 hours in places that have restrooms.  Now it's open 1191.  In more detail, it was open 529 morning hours; now it's open 622.  It was open 305 evening hours; now 258.  It was open 240 weekend hours; now 304.  I think it's pretty obvious that decision-making about which hours each branch is open (as opposed to how many hours) is fairly decentralised in TRL.  I don't think there's a smoke-filled room at any of these library systems where tycoons are saying "Let's open and close all the libraries earlier", but that's especially implausible with TRL.  But what decentralised decision-making seems to be bringing is this:  Every time I look, morning hours have increased; every time I look, weekend hours have increased; and every time I look, evening hours have decreased.

One hypothesis I've entertained is that evening hours have been jettisoned because of the crime wave everyone is so afraid of.  Well, take the Westport branch in Grays Harbor County.  Before the lockdowns it had a complicated schedule in which it opened Tuesdays through Saturdays at 10 A.M. and closed between 4 and 6 P.M.  Now it's open 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. each day it's open.  Is the crime wave in Westport really so terrible?

TRL's Behavior Expectations Handout (one-page PDF) has a last-modified date of September 2022, which isn't the last-modified date my page of October 2022 cited, but the quotes I made in April 2022 are still there, and I don't see any others that trigger my worries about homeless people.  TRL is changing its catalogue and website to BiblioCommons in just over two weeks, which will change its website a good deal, but for what it's worth, its information about getting a card right now doesn't look much changed; it still has a sub-standard card for, among others, homeless people, but that's about the best of those sub-standard cards (up to ten checkouts).  That page currently has a neato map illustrating its reciprocal borrowing agreements.  TRL also offers cards unilaterally:  "Timberland library cards are free to:  ... Residents of other areas outside of the TRL Service area within Washington that have tax-supported public library service".

Pierce County Library System

The Pierce County Library System had, in August 2019, five schedules for its twenty locations.  In 2022 it had 13.  Now (October 4) it's back down to eight.

  • The Gig Harbor and South Hill branches open at 9 A.M. Mondays through Fridays, 10 A.M. weekends, and close at 7 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays and 5 P.M. Sundays, for a total of 64 hours.
  • The Parkland/Spanaway and University Place branches open at 10 A.M. every day, and close at 8 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 P.M. Fridays and Saturdays, and 5 P.M. Sundays, for a total of 63 hours.
  • The Bonney Lake, Graham and Summit branches 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.
  •  The Sumner branch opens at 10 A.M. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 P.M. Sundays, and closes at 7 P.M. Mondays through Wednesdays, 6 P.M. Thursdays and Fridays, and 5 P.M. weekends, for a total of 54 hours.
  • The Buckley, DuPont, Eatonville, Fife, Key Center, Milton/Edgewood, Orting and Steilacoom branches keep the same hours as the Sumner branch except that they're closed Sundays, for a total of 50 hours.
  • The Tillicum branch (the closest to Joint Base Lewis-McChord) opens at noon Mondays and Tuesdays and 11 A.M. Wednesdays through Saturdays, and closes at 7 P.M. Mondays and Tuesdays, 6 P.M. Wednesdays through Fridays, and 5 P.M. Saturdays, for a total of 41 hours.  I'm not used to thinking of military bases as being on the wrong side of the tracks.
  • The Anderson Island location is open 11 A.M. to 2 P.M. Wednesdays. It doesn't include restrooms, so I've never counted it for PCLS either before or after.
  • And the Administrative Center and the Lakewood branch are closed to the public.
    • In the case of the Administrative Center, I think this is again a leftover from the pandemic that the staff find convenient.  The Administrative Center in this case is an actual library - it's where books in storage are kept, in a basement off-limits to the public.  I've been there for that reason, so I personally know it used to be open, for some small value of "open".  (I'm not sure any of its restrooms were open, admittedly.)
    • The Lakewood branch's situation is a mess.  I'm inclined to believe PCLS's claim (2-page PDF) that the building is no longer worth repairing, but the branch has been closed for over a year.  Why on Earth isn't there some sort of temporary location already?  Granted, the Green Lake branch in Seattle has been closed for over a year, but it's within a reasonable, if long, walk of the Northeast, University and Wallingford branches.  As it happens, I actually have walked between the Lakewood branch and three relatively close ones - University Place, Steilacoom and DuPont (though not yet Tillicum).  Those are major hikes that require planning.  Not every user of a public library is old enough to drive, so there damn well should have been a temporary location of some kind long since.  What PCLS is offering instead (2-page PDF) is what it calls "pop-ups" and what I see as scraps.  

PCLS has actually expanded the hours of the branches that are open considerably in the past year.  It would probably already have caught up to its 2019 hours - 986 - if it weren't for the closures; its total now is 917.  This represents 431 morning hours (403 before), 281 evening hours (377 before), and 205 weekend hours (206 before).

PCLS is a non-BiblioCommons library (my go-to for borrowing e-books) that has changed domain names and massively revamped its website in the past year.  Its Library Rules of Conduct (2-page PDF) still have a last-modified date of 2019, and still contain the lines I quoted in April 2022.  Its current getting a card page looks fine; it doesn't offer cards unilaterally.

Puyallup Public Library

The Puyallup Public Library is the only example in this part of a single-building public library institution, although in all three other parts I plan to write, single-building libraries are the majority of the institutions.  Such libraries often have their schedules on their home pages, for example (as at the two-building Everett Public Library) in the footer.  That's what the Puyallup Public Library does.  Its hours a year ago were increased by two from before the pandemic, thanks to two more morning hours and a trade of one hour from evenings to weekends, and its hours on October 4 were the same.

PPL's Code of Conduct has a last-modified date of 2018, and was scheduled for review in 2021 already.  It still has everything I quoted.  Now, PPL's Borrower Eligibility policy has the same dates, but in this case, it looks like whoever writes the library's website has moved on unilaterally.  In April 2022 I went into some detail about PPL's library card rules, which were considerably more detailed themselves than they are now.  PPL now says "All Washington residents are eligible for a free Puyallup Public Library card."  Few libraries in western Washington make it simpler than that.

This matters to me partly because PPL had, on the same page as the rules now apparently abrogated, a fairly onerous limited card for homeless people and other transients:  "Non-verified cards are cards that expire in six months, allow for check-out of three physical items and access to our electronic resources.  These cards will be issued in the following situations.  1. Temporary Residents, such as those on temporary work assignment, school or military assignment, those living in emergency shelters/temporary housing or those staying long-term in RV parks.  2. Non-verified Residents, such as those who do not have current acceptable ID or proof of local address."  (Emphasis added.  I guess the military really are on the wrong side of the tracks.  But aren't military assignments normally at least six months?  Why doesn't Puyallup just go all the way and limit renters' cards too?)  If I understand correctly, the current website says the 2018 policy on those limited cards is still in effect, but not the 2018 policy on which non-residents can get cards.  But I'm really not sure PPL's pages are that well thought out; this may be something that's in flux.

I e-mailed the library's director Thursday, very near the end of the day, warning that I planned to write this page in you, dear Diary, on Saturday. She hasn't written back and nobody's changed the pages that contradict each other. I'll let you know, dear Diary, if things change.

Otherwise, though, I think this is enough for one part. I've started the next one, and hope to finish it soon. Until then, dear Diary, happy nights and days.

 

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Friday, October 6, 2023

Public Library Hours, Autumn 2023, part I: Introduction

Dear Diary,

Yep, it's time for another round of library hours!  What fun!

I've been writing pages in you about library hours for two years, dear Diary, and enough people have read those pages, near as I can tell, to make it worthwhile to continue to do so.  A list of previous pages is near the top of this page's predecessor; the only new one since then is "Academic Library Hours One Year Later, Part II: Public colleges".  A warning to anyone who visits the past pages:  my approach has evolved by trial and error over those two years; don't be surprised at variations in methods and topics.

That said, other predecessors to this part besides the one linked above:

Contents of this part:

Plans for this year's set of pages

This year I decided to cover fully the further half of western Washington public libraries, so I'm breaking public libraries into four parts:

  • Libraries where Seattle residents can unequivocally get cards, all of which have at least one location within thirty miles of my house as the crow flies.  This part covers eight multi-location libraries and one single-location library, in ten of western Washington's nineteen counties:  Island, Snohomish, King, Pierce, Thurston, Kitsap, Mason, Grays Harbor, Pacific and Lewis; it covers all public libraries in each of those counties except Pacific Grays Harbor (correction October 10).
  • Libraries in Clallam, Jefferson and San Juan counties, one multi-location and five single-location libraries.  In the past I've covered more fully two of these (one each in Clallam and Jefferson) that might offer Seattle residents cards, so won't go into as much detail about those this time.
  • Libraries in Skagit and Whatcom counties, two multi-location and six single-location libraries.  In the past I've covered two Whatcom and one Skagit libraries more fully.  (And yes, San Juan County is actually nearer Skagit County than Jefferson County.  But my goal was to divide these parts as evenly as I could.)
  • Libraries in Pacific Grays Harbor (correction October 10), Wahkiakum, Cowlitz, Clark and Skamania counties, one multi-location and seven single-location libraries.  In the past I've covered one Clark library more fully.  (The multi-location library in this part includes two branches in Klickitat County, which I consider part of eastern Washington.  I'm not covering those branches in this page.)

Previous pages have introduced all libraries then known to me in western Washington with the exception of private academic libraries.  Very many private colleges in western Washington are poorly documented online, and I got quite bored with the amount of work involved for tiny gains (in the form of open libraries).  I hope to finish work on them this month but make no promises.  Also, because I never finished the private academic libraries, I never subjected the academic libraries in general to the same sort of hours analysis I'd subjected the public libraries to.  I'm pretty sure evening hours have decreased at many of the academic libraries (in two ways, either not open at all, or curfewed to the general public), but haven't done the numbers to prove it yet. Whether or not I finish researching the infinite number of seminaries 'round here by the end of the month, I hope to do what I can about those numbers.

This year, if a rules page has the same last-modified date as I noted last year, I'm unlikely to investigate further.  Also, this year, I'm not, in general, updating my lists of libraries. Newly founded libraries, if any, can wait until next year.

However, dear Diary, do note that the Washington State Library's directory of Washington libraries, my main source for lists, is back up; it was down for some time, and is now at a different URL.  It's now significantly less helpful:  one can search for libraries by type or location, but not by type and location.  On the other hand, it's also now significantly more helpful; searches are persistent, meaning one can look at individual libraries' entries without disturbing the searches.  I visited the websites of every public library in eastern Washington while working on the next part, by using this feature.  Anyway, in the process, I also verified that neither the state directory nor American Library Directory knows of any new public libraries in Washington.

Some terminology

Library cards

My impression is that the people who run public libraries really like giving out library cards, by and large.  Here are three ways those in western Washington provide card access for non-residents.  Imagine Library A and Library B, and People A whom Library A recognises as qualified to get its library cards, and People B similarly.

  • In a "reciprocal borrowing agreement", Library A offers People B library cards, and Library B offers People A library cards.  These cards may have restrictions.
    • In general, these agreements don't cover inter-library loan. I currently have four reciprocal cards, but can only do ILL in Seattle.
    • In general, these agreements aren't transitive.  For example, Seattle residents can get King County Library System cards, and KCLS residents can get Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries cards, but Seattle residents can't get FVRL cards. If Seattle Public Library is Library A, my King County Library System card doesn't make me a member of People B; I stay People A when dealing with other libraries.
    • In addition, either library may impose other restrictions on the other's people.  For example, Seattleites aren't allowed nearly as many holds at KCLS as other card holders.
  • Library A may offer People B cards regardless of what Library B does for People A. I'm not sure there's a trade name for this decision which several libraries in western Washington have made, so I'll just refer to it as "unilateral". (For my notion that doing this amounts to unilateral disarmament in the reciprocal borrowing agreement negotiation wars.) In Washington, most unilateral libraries offer cards only to people who are *some* library's People, not to just everyone.  Again, unilaterally granted cards usually don't provide ILL service, are never transitive, and may have other restrictions.
  • Libraries A and B may agree to recognise each other's cards.  This kind of arrangement usually seems to involve multiple kinds of libraries, not just public libraries; in particular, academic and school libraries often join.  The name "one card" appears to be used for at least some versions of this around the world. A few areas in Washington do this.  One card libraries may provide ILL, are locally but not generally transitive, and usually have restrictions having to do with which libraries own which electronic licenses.

A few libraries in Washington (a decent percentage of the public one card libraries) actually do all three of these.

Categories of public libraries

Public libraries in Washington are divided by two criteria I find interesting.

One is simple:  Single location or multiple locations?

The other is complicated. It's based on Washington land law.  In Washington, land is either "incorporated" into a "municipality", a city or town, or is "unincorporated".  Municipalities in Washington can run their own libraries.  Unincorporated areas can set up "rural library districts" to run libraries.  Originally, rural library districts had to serve all the residents of unincorporated areas in at least one county, but in 1993, partial county library districts were authorised. Municipalities can "accede" or "annex" to a rural district; most municipalities in western Washington have done so.  (Technically, the only city in the state that can't legally accede to a district is Seattle, but if Seattle really wanted to do that, the law would probably be changed, as it was when fifteen years ago Renton wanted to annex to KCLS.)

This distinction also affects funding. Municipal librariesare primarily funded by the city's or town's general fund.  District libraries are funded primarily by their own property taxes, although they may also get money directly from municipalities or counties, and may get money from timber sales too.  The Seattle Public Library is currently both municipal and district by its funding.  As I understand it, funding differences may drive the continued existence of several municipal libraries.

Rules

I've been tracking seven kinds of rules.  For definitions, examples and discussion, see the obvious previous part linked above.  The kinds:

  • hygiene rules (don't stink up the library); 
  • camping bans; 
  • sleeping bans; 
  • loitering bans, which are "gotcha" rules; 
  • box rules (don't bring in more stuff than fits in this size of box, in the classic formulation), also "gotcha" rules; 
  • grooming bans; 
  • and bans on unattended personal property.

"Gotcha" rules are rules that are only likely to be enforced selectively, against people librarians wish to get rid of for other reasons.  (In particular, neither has been enforced against me - despite my violating them - but I've seen other homeless people targeted by them.)

I picked the whole set because I think most homeless people are more likely to encounter enforcement of these than of most other library rules.  Also, I've been tracking these not to illustrate to any homeless readers ways they can misbehave at various libraries, because I think it's obvious that any behaviour those rules ban (except perhaps the loitering ban) can be stopped by enforcement where needed regardless.  So my main point is to use such rules as guidance to the library's familarity with, and attitude towards, homeless people.

Trends I decry

Before starting to write this page, I re-read some of the past pages.  Over the course of the series so far, I've developed areas of emphasis - besides hours, also rules and borrowing privileges. I've also added to my lists of libraries by adding sources. And I've developed arguments, which this year are my working hypotheses to test.  These arguments include two new trends and one continuing pattern I see as worrisome:

  • Many libraries that were open to the public before the pandemic are now closed to the public, by policy rather than by the happenstance of construction and destruction.  These include a few libraries at public universities, a few at private universities, some private and some governmental libraries.  Also included, some headquarters of public library systems.
  • Many libraries that are still open to the public have re-opened since the pandemic unevenly, maintaining or even increasing "morning" hours, but decreasing "evening" hours.  By "morning" I mean until 3 P.M. on weekdays, and by "evening" I mean after 3 P.M. on Mondays through Thursdays.  (Everything else is "weekend".)  I see this as problematic partly because morning hours are inconvenient for first shift workers, but mainly because schools typically get out around 3 P.M., so morning hours are inconvenient for students. (I'm not sure, but I think for many homeless people - certainly for me and a bunch of people I knew, when I was homeless - all library hours are about equal.)
  • In many cases, public libraries "on the wrong side of the tracks" had the shortest hours before the pandemic, and this has seemed to be continuing after.  Most such libraries in western Washington are on or near Indian reservations, but the poster child for this phenomenon early in this decade was Seattle Public Library's NewHolly branch.  At any rate, this time, I'm calling attention to each library branch that I see as "on the wrong side of the tracks", whether it has the shortest hours that library system offers or not.

Another trend:  BiblioCommons

Western Washington has twelve multi-location libraries, as listed above.  A single software system, BiblioCommons, has become dominant among them:  Eight such libraries now use it, up from six last year.  (No single-location public libraries in Washington use BiblioCommons.)  I have two categories of problems with BiblioCommons, one technical and several personal.

Technical:  BiblioCommons by default keeps library hours only in individual branches' pages.  The Internet Archive usually doesn't save branches' pages at all often.  The Seattle Public Library does maintain a single Web page listing hours, so libraries using BiblioCommons are able to do so; most library systems already make physical handouts with all libraries' hours, and these may be more or less randomly preserved in staffers' computers (that's my source for the pre-pandemic hours of two major BiblioCommons libraries); but in general, the past schedules of library systems using BiblioCommons aren't available online.  This problem isn't specific to BiblioCommons; see Timberland Regional Library in the next part for a then non-BiblioCommons library whose pre-pandemic hours were saved only by chance.  But because BiblioCommons sells itself partly as a website builder, but doesn't build a comprehensive hours page by default, the problem is more common at BiblioCommons libraries.

Personal:  BiblioCommons appears to believe that every interaction with a library online should be a social media interaction; I vehemently disagree.  I hate the fact that what has become a significant aspect of citizenship should require me to adopt a "handle" to use.  I also feel betrayed by SPL's unfulfilled claim, when it adopted BiblioCommons, that "begins with" searches would return soon.  "Begins with" isn't hard to program (I think I could even do it myself), so this suggests that BiblioCommons doesn't actually care much about searching capabilities.  Given all these things, I've never signed up with BiblioCommons.  Ironically, this essentially destroys my ability to do anything but search library catalogues online.  I can't borrow e-books, place holds, renew books, or keep track of due dates online at a BiblioCommons library.  My disagreement with a private company makes me a second-class user of my own public library, and seven others around the state.

So one could reasonably say I'm biased.  The Kitsap Regional Library recently adopted BiblioCommons, and gave an explanation, obviously much more positive about the software.  This explanation appears unlikely to be permanently online but for the moment is the answer to the top question in this FAQ page.  The question's wording is "Why did you update the website and catalog?", in case someone reading this page in you later, dear Diary, can find it that way.  Regardless, anyone, even BiblioCommons's biggest fan, who wants to apply my methods somewhere else, is likely to find that BiblioCommons libraries' past hours are often unavailable.

Eastern Washington?

Eastern Washington has twelve multi-location libraries (for my purposes, since I'm not covering Fort Vancouver Regional Libraries' Klickitat County libraries as part of western Washington), and eighteen single-location ones.  Not one uses BiblioCommons; score one good decision from Washington state Republicans.  I'm toying with covering eastern Washington, maybe six months off from western, in Aprils; the main thing holding me back is fear of yet more academic libraries, especially but not only seminaries' hypothetical libraries.  However, it's also an issue that many eastern Washington public libraries' websites (primarily for the single-location libraries) are unbelievably uninformative.  (Several, for one spectacular example, say nothing, nothing at all I'm not making this up, about how to get a library card.)  This is one sign that eastern Washington public libraries aren't nearly as well funded, on average, as western; another such sign is that more eastern Washington public libraries are still closed than in western Washington, quite the opposite of what one would expect based on political opinions about COVID-19.

Just as in western Washington, the vast majority of public library buildings are in multi-location libraries, but even among those, there appear to be far fewer reciprocal borrowing agreements (which was the other thing, besides BiblioCommons, that I looked for when I went through all their websites yesterday).  As I've pointed out before, reciprocal borrowing agreements cost money if only for the negotiating process, so this may be another sign of under-funding.  However, several areas are showing signs of coalescence, with two shared catalogues - Kittitas County and Wheatland (Lincoln and Adams counties) - and an extensive one card policy, rather than reciprocal borrowing, at the Cooperative Information Network in four Idaho and two Washington counties (the latter are Pend Oreille County and one library in Spokane County).

We'll see how busy I am in April, dear Diary.  But for now, on with western Washington; I expect to write part II in you tomorrow.  A good night and good morning until then, dear Diary.


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Monday, September 4, 2023

On the Last Day of Summer

Dear Diary,

I didn't fulfill my goal of hiking this summer, as I'd hoped.  I'm just too lazy in hot weather to get it done.  But it wasn't hot today, and I thought I could at least visit four places that have things I understood as summer-specific, things that would be gone tomorrow.  Two of those places have restrooms I've never even seen.  So I went out, though mostly by bus rather than on foot, to:

  • Magnuson Park's Armory, the east side, where there are restroom doors I'd never found open, but which supposedly open in summer;
  • Matthews Beach's restroom building, the east side, where there are doors to restrooms, supposedly equipped with showers, which I'd never found open because they're supposedly opened only in summer for beachgoers;
  • Soundview Playfield's water fountain, which is adjacent to a water play area, so I'd always assumed it didn't work because it was on the same pipes as that area; 
  • and Green Lake Park's Bathhouse Theatre building, whose restrooms' doors to the outside open summer and winter, but not spring and fall.  Even before I lived near it, though, I was familiar with this one.

(The links are to folders at my Google Drive account where photos, including ones not shown below, can be found.)

Now, my premise could be faulted.  The last day of summer by astronomical standards is the day before the equinox, September 21st this year.  It's right on the front page of the Seattle Public Schools' website that classes don't start until September 6th for most students, which means tomorrow is the last day of summer for them.  Cliff Mass told us a week ago that meteorological autumn was kicking in early this year.  My personal definition of summer for Seattle (as opposed to other, Midwestern, places I've lived) is that it ends at the end of September.  (See, I don't think Seattle has a winter unless it snows.  So I figure four months for each of the other seasons.)

But Labor Day is still a traditional meaning in the US for "last day of summer", and that meant for me that it was a reasonable guess as to what the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation would use as a cutoff.  Hence my trip today.

So what happened?

Magnuson Park

Nothing new here.



Maybe nobody remembered to open them on Labor Day because the parks department was short-staffed.  Maybe someone at the parks department was watching the weather and said "No point in opening these, the temperature won't exceed 70."  (And how does that affect the crying need for restrooms in that part of Magnuson Park?)  But maybe the parks department has simply forgotten that once upon a time, these doors actually opened once in a while, and were advertised as being open in summer.  All I know is that they were closed, and since they don't have handles, that means they were locked.

Matthews Beach

Matthews Beach has two sets of restrooms.  One set is a pair of ungendered single-user stalls.  The other is a pair of gendered rooms that include not just toilets and sinks, but also, so I'm told, showers.  (As opposed to the outdoor showers offered at Magnuson and Golden Gardens Parks.  I don't remember any at Carkeek Park, but that doesn't prove they aren't there too.)

Because I don't hike in summer, I've never found those rooms open.  Well, not today either.  I took four photos, dear Diary, and will show you just one, saving the rest for the Google Drive folders.

 

See, these doors do have handles.  So how could I prove that the doors were locked without taking an action photo and risking my new phone?  Well, notice not far to the right of the handle in that photo - yes, there's a lock on the door.  That's how.

So.  Matthews Beach was closed to swimming for the rest of the summer in mid-July, because the parks department no longer has the staffing flexibility to keep trying to re-open it.  I suppose it makes sense therefore to close the shower restrooms.  After all, despite the park's distance from places where homeless people hang out, there's always the risk that some homeless person could use the showers to get clean, and we all know that it's evil to let homeless people become more like other people.  More realistically, there's the risk of vandalism, especially without a staffer (lifeguard) on site.

But at this rate, am I ever going to see these restrooms?  Am I ever going to catch just the right eyeblink of summer to go looking?

So I was worried that Soundview Playfield's kind of boxlike restrooms might be hard to reach because of construction (I thought I'd heard something about the play field itself, adjacent, getting a makeover; maybe I had, but there was no construction and no signage when I got there), and I was worried that the buses would take too long (but actually I had excellent luck with buses today)...  So I used one of the single-user stalls at Matthews Beach.  Most of what I used worked just fine.  However, the sink seemed to reach equilibrium with water still at its bottom, and the photo of that I tried to take will illustrate the other problem with that stall:


(Yes, dear Diary, the light didn't come on.)

Things improved from here, however.

Soundview Playfield

For three years now, I've assumed Soundview Playfield's water fountain didn't work because it was on the same plumbing as the adjacent water feature, so when the latter was turned off (most of the time), so was the water fountain.

To prepare for today's trip, I even checked this helpful schedule, but in an epically stupid move, convinced myself to ignore what the page said in black and while about how Soundview's wading pool 


would close on August 20th, I just knew it really had a spray park, and those didn't close until today.  Honestly, after my complaints about tech malfunctions earlier this evening - well, I should be grateful that tech doesn't malfunction as consistently as my brain does.  But anyway, I found out before leaving that I'd misunderstood, but still determined to go.

And I'm glad I did, because it turns out Soundview Playfield's water fountain can actually run while the pool isn't in operation; I'd been wrong about that all along.


Green Lake Park

Nothing new here, either.  The Bathhouse Theatre building restrooms were open, as they should have been (unlike the two sets above).

So that was my summer adventure.  I'll try to take it earlier next summer, or maybe only when there are no algae to worry about, or something.

I hope to check the rest of the park restrooms before winter, but I'm not making any promises.  That said, October isn't far away, and my public libraries spreadsheet did survive the crash, so it'll soon be time for, and I can deliver, another round of library hours pages.  One way or another, anyway, happy days and nights, dear Diary, until we meet again.


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Some changes, Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

Before I get to today's hike (which was actually mostly on buses), I should tell you a few things that have happened these past few months I've been neglecting you.

Most importantly, your next page, dear Diary, will contain the first photos I've taken for you on a phone I own myself.  From 2017, that is, before you were born, dear Diary, until this past weekend, I've only had phones supported by my eldest brother.  First, an LG phone with which I was very happy, but which was stolen early in your life, dear Diary.  So most of the photos I've taken for you, and most of the pages I wrote on either phone, were on a Samsung phone I was much less happy with.

However, finally last week Samsung put its foot down, demanding my obedience, and meanwhile denying me the chance to use or even charge the phone.  Well, I still have some money left from last spring's work, and I knew my brother would retire next year, so that choice was pretty easy.  Bizarrely, once I got home from replacing it, the Samsung phone started working again.  But anyway, now (having learnt, to my sorrow, that LG no longer make cell phones) I have a OnePlus phone on which I'm reserving judgement, but they'd have to go pretty far to get me as mad as Samsung did.

So, dear Diary, you owe a lot to my brother, and anyone else who reads your pages owes in proportion to whatever they get out of those pages, too.

Anyway.  Speaking of photos...  I've really had exceptionally bad luck with technology this summer.  About a month ago, something posing as an update wiped out my Ubuntu Linux installation's ability to use a graphical interface, including all the software that couldn't be used without the interface.  (What I saw before the crash was that it was bragging about deleting my office software, LibreOffice.)  Well, I was able, using just the command line, copy all my files to my long-neglected backup drive, so once I got Debian Linux installed, I figured my problems were over.  This has turned out not to be true.  

First, I now have some kind of crippleware version of Debian, which won't let me use any keyboard but the Roman script one, won't let me escape it into Windows (not that I like to spend time in Windows, but it's profoundly annoying not to have the option, to be reminded every time I start the computer that this Linux version thinks it owns me, rather than the reverse), and in general reminds me daily that because I'm not a Unix wizard, I don't have any rights with respect to it.

Second, however, none of that is as important to you, dear Diary, as something else, an entirely unrelated consequence of the crash which I only discovered last week.  Turns out the crash didn't just wipe out graphics-dependent software, it also wiped out graphics-dependent data, such as, most obviously, photos.  Specifically, photos for you.  (It seems to have been crazy selective.  No maps were damaged, for example.)  The only photos it cared to leave are those I took this year, 2023.  So, in particular, lots of photos of downtown Seattle are now gone, as well as those I took for the never-written pages about Tacoma, and any number of others.

We'll just see what happens, but anyway, there have been some reasons other than my laziness why I haven't written any pages in you for a long time, dear Diary.  After tonight, I'll try to do better in the short term, and then we'll see about the longer term.  See you again soon, though.


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Monday, May 8, 2023

Truth and fantasy about park restrooms in winter

Dear Diary,

I've now mapped the park restrooms that were promised to be open in North Seattle last winter:


and then modified that map by what I found in February and in March:


The big circles that are obvious on the map represent differences between what I found and what we were all told last November.  Eight of those differences are restrooms closed that the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation's spokes-person claimed would be open; and two are restrooms open that she did not claim would be.

  1. Little Brook Park.  We were told the unheated wooden box of a restroom this park has would be open this past winter, and to emphasise the point, responsibility for keeping it open was given to both the Northwest and the Northeast parks maintenance crews.  However, someone on one of those crews sensibly enough put a closure sign up instead.  Lake City still needs real park restrooms, which should be in Virgil Flaim Park; it doesn't need jokes about the inadequate room it has instead.
  2. Jackson Park.  The parks department tends to ignore this park in many ways, including lists of restrooms; in particular, the restrooms there are maintained, opened and closed by employees of a private lessee, not by the parks department.  So this is more an apparent difference than a real one, but still, there's restrooms in a city-owned park that were open this past winter but not in the posted list, so it's still a difference.
  3. Sandel Playground.  Both in 2020-2021 and in 2022-2023 I found the restrooms there locked; in both years they were supposed to open.  I think this is a disagreement between the parks department's PR people and the northwest maintenance crew.  I hope they settle it before next winter.
  4. Green Lake Park, Bathhouse restrooms.  These are customarily open in winter and summer, but not in spring and fall, so again, I wasn't surprised to find them open despite their omission from the posted list, but it's still a difference.
  5. Salmon Bay Park.  I'm not sure whether this building has heat, but it doesn't have much room for it, and these restrooms haven't customarily been open in winter.  I'm guessing this lie was meant to appease people in Ballard who want the homeless to have somewhere to go besides the library and the bushes.  Maybe including Ballard's city council member?  Or maybe it was much less than that, just a joke on me, as previously suggested.  Mind, dear Diary, I still don't have a clue why the indoor restrooms with doors that open to the outdoors, in the Ballard Community Center, close each winter, unless it's out of hatred towards homeless people.  But we weren't promised Ballard Community Center last winter, and we were promised Salmon Bay Park.
  6. Green Lake Park, Shellhouse restrooms.  These are customarily open year-round, but the building they're in is currently behind a construction fence.
  7. Ravenna Park, lower restrooms.  These are customarily open year-round, but the men's room has been locked for years, and the women's room was locked too when I went there this past winter.
  8. Woodland Park, Citywide Athletics Building ("Rio") restrooms.  These have also been locked for years, and have acquired an impressive amount of graffiti on this subject.  Now, closing restrooms in winter that could be kept open is supposed to enable the parks maintenance crews to clean graffiti up, so I'm not sure why they're neglecting these examples.  Nor am I clear on why the athletes were left without restrooms this past winter, considering that a perfectly reasonable alternative (Woodland Park Cloverleaf) is available a few blocks north, and was opened winter 2020-2021.
  9. University Playground.  The restrooms have been closed for years, since the pandemic began and probably since before then.  They've been fenced in, in the recent past; they're now welded shut.  A blatant lie.
  10. Gas Works Park.  A little further along than the Green Lake Small Crafts Center (whose restrooms are referred to by the name of the nearby Shellhouse); here it's the place where the building was that's now surrounded by a construction fence.

In the past, I've suggested that the parks department's pathological inability to tell the truth about its winter restrooms resulted from a sorcerer's spell.  This year, there's perhaps a more prosaic explanation.  This past winter, visitors to parks all over southern North Seattle, south of 65th, say, got to experience what park visitors in Lake City experience all the time:  no restrooms.  As many were closed despite claims they'd be open, as were open:  Green Lake Shellhouse, Woodland "Rio", Gas Works, lower Ravenna, and University were all promised but closed; Woodland Pink Palace and 50th, Green Lake 64th, Wallingford and - I presume, not having gotten there myself - Laurelhurst were all promised and open.  Now, something similar happens in West Seattle on a regular basis, and West Seattle typically has more political power in Seattle than southern North Seattle does.  But maybe the parks department didn't like the optics of admitting how far someone needing a restroom would have to walk, in southern North Seattle, so it decorated truth with fantasy.

Or maybe it didn't like admitting how few open restroom locations in North Seattle it was using our tax dollars to support this winter, so it added a few it knew wouldn't be open.  We were promised 25.  We got 18.  (Jackson Park's restrooms aren't supported by tax dollars.)  In 2019-2020, we got 23.  We got 72% of what was promised, and 78% of three years ago.  In my experience, in school, these would usually be passing grades, but they aren't in my current job.  Are they passing grades in parks department jobs?

At least this year, there isn't an agency serving the homeless that relies on the parks department to tell the truth about its own property.  So with any luck, my former peers weren't misled by those lies.  I wonder who else was.

Good night, dear Diary.  I don't know when I'll be back, so have a happy spring, by day and night both.


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Wednesday, May 3, 2023

My March Hikes

Dear Diary,

This page concerns four hikes I made in March.  The first two started pretty late, so didn't cover many parks.  The fourth was too late to observe the parks in winter, and anyway had to be cut short because I had to make it to an appointment for work.  (Three of my four Wednesdays "off" in the last month of tax season ended up with appointments anyway.)  So only the third was a really useful hike, but I have things to tell you from the others as well.

March 5th

On this day, having started late, I only made it to Jackson Park, Northacres Park and Playfield, Bitter Lake Playfield, and Sandel Playground; the links are to the folders at Google Drive with most of the photos.  I already talked about Sandel.  All the others deserve attention here.

Jackson Park

As usual, this park's water fountains were on:


Northacres Park and Playfield

As usual, this park's specially winter-adapted water fountains:


had been shut down for the winter:


My best guess is that the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation didn't deliberately set out to waste this special quality of these fountains.  Rather, I'm thinking they attached them to a restroom building that at that time was heated, but whose heating since broke down and wasn't fixed.  On the other hand, the recently installed set of similar fountains (without explicit labels) at Cal Anderson Park have been shut down every winter since they appeared, so maybe the parks department actually does buy winter-proof fountains without any intention of using their winter-proof qualities.  I don't know.

Bitter Lake Playfield

There's nothing unusual about Bitter Lake's restrooms as well as water fountains being shut down in winter.


Except that that building wasn't supposed to look like that any more:


Maybe there wasn't a plan to heat the building, but at least the restrooms were going to be de-gendered.  (And presumably lose their urinals.)  What happened?

Several projects have been rescheduled, of course, not just this one.  What confuses me is the question whether there are limits to this rescheduling.  Later in this page I'm showing you some torn-down restroom buildings, dear Diary.  Will those projects be rescheduled before the replacements are put up?

March 12th

That day I had a lot to do other than hike, so the only park I made it to was Salmon Bay Park, for the second time, an hour earlier than the first, as discussed in the first page about this set of hikes.

March 19th

I only reached five parks on my last Sunday off during tax season, but two are kind of large:  Gas Works Park, Wallingford Playfield, Meridian Playground, Woodland Park and Green Lake Park.  Also the street fountain on 45th, which wasn't running.

Gas Works Park

The main decorative motif in the core area of Gas Works Park where the actual gas works are, as well as the restrooms, water fountains, playground and so forth, is currently fences.  The parks department claims that this is because construction on the long-planned renovations in that area has begun:


But it seems to me all that's happened so far is, um, destruction:


So this is one of the projects I'm worried about.

To be fair, the parks department has deployed lots of "sanican"s to the parking lot, as well as at least one hand-washing station.

Woodland Park

The list of restrooms to be open this winter posted by Christina Hirsch in November includes three entries in this park:  "Woodland Park 50th", which is near some of the picnic shelters; "Woodland Park Pink Palace", which is near the rest of the picnic shelters - both in the western part of the non-zoo part of the park (and both of which I did indeed find open).  And "Woodland Park Rio".  That refers to the restrooms whose doors open to the outside in the Citywide Athletics Building, toward the southern end of the park's easternmost part, the athletic fields.  These restrooms:



I'm not clear on why, this past winter, there were restrooms for the people hiking on the west side of the block, but none for the much greater number doing athletic stuff on the east side.  Last time I went these rounds, the restrooms at the centre of the baseball cloverleaf were opened, daylight hours more or less, to substitute for "Rio"'s closure.  This time, I found the building's attached water fountain running, which certainly suggests it has some kind of heat.  But on March 19th, 2023, I didn't find the cloverleaf restrooms open, in full daylight at 3:18 P.M.

As with the restrooms in lower Ravenna Park, these "Rio" rooms have been closed for well over a year now.  The list I'm checking was actively revised; why did the reviser not know about these two closures?

Green Lake Park

Another revision in that list concerned Green Lake Park.  Customarily, the "Bathhouse" restrooms, that is, those with doors opening to the outside at the Bathhouse Theatre building where the Public Theatre presents shows, have been open in winter.  This winter's list omitted them, but in fact they were, as usual, open, at least on March 19th:


Flipside, the list of open restrooms for last winter did include the "Green Lake Shellhouse".  But...



I'm not sure, but I think the building with the restrooms was still standing when I visited.  To be fair, the row of "sanican"s nearby has two hand-washing stations.

Now, Green Lake Park has its own mini-rescheduling situation.  The Community Center was supposed to be renovated.  This resulted in a truly horrifying story I've already told you, dear Diary, or anyway a truly horrifying part of an even more horrifying story, in which I found out the water wasn't running in the men's room only after using the toilet there.  During an atmospheric river.  Let's just say the Community Center's renovations matter to me.  So now, having already inflicted damage preparing for those renovations, they're not doing them after all.  All this I already knew.

But imagine my surprise to find that instead a different set of restrooms at Green Lake Park is fenced away, to be torn down and replaced.  Green Lake Park just can't win for losing, can it?

March 22nd

Before I took any photos that day, I saw a man come out of the restroom in Greenwood Park.  Which is just like the restroom in Little Brook Park, essentially a wooden box, certainly not heated.  So this was proof that the parks department had pivoted back to its regular roster of restrooms to open.

Obstinately, I kept hiking anyway.  Again, I made it to five parks:  Sandel Playground, Greenwood Park, Licton Springs Park, Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, and Waldo J. Dahl Playfield.

Of course, I found four of these parks had open restrooms.  That's what happens outside winter, right?  (Well, except in Ravenna Park, and Gas Works Park, and ...)

And except in Licton Springs Park:



Notice, dear Diary, that this sign doesn't make any promises as to when the actual construction part will happen.

All for now, dear Diary.  What remains for this set of pages is to do some mapping and see if there's anything worth saying about that.  Probably Sunday or Monday.

But I'm currently, as the placeholder with which I started this page indicated, focusing on other areas of my life.  Longer term, I am promised at least eight weeks off work this summer, and intend to spend at least one of them doing something I haven't yet done for you at all, a summer hike of North Seattle.  I also hope to visit a few counties I may write about the rest of this year.

So probably one page early next week, and then maybe none for a while.  Happy days and nights as spring continues, dear Diary!


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