The Washington State Library is a government agency that operates public libraries in
Washington state
Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
's prisons and mental hospitals, and maintains collections related to the state government. Based in
Tumwater
Tumwater is a town in Thurston County, Washington, United States. The population was 25,350 at the 2020 census. It is situated near where the Deschutes River enters Budd Inlet, the southernmost point of Puget Sound; it also borders the state ca ...
, it is a service of the
Washington Secretary of State
The secretary of state of Washington is an independently elected constitutional officer in the executive branch of the government of the U.S. state of Washington. Fifteen individuals have held the office of Secretary of State since statehood. The ...
and was founded in 1853 as the Washington Territorial Library.
The library has a collection of 2.25 million physical items and other online resources available to residents of the state.
History
The Washington Territorial Library was established on March 2, 1853, with the signing of the
Organic Act by President
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, serving from 1850 to 1853; he was the last to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House. A former member of the U.S. House of Represen ...
to create
Washington Territory. The law included an appropriation of $5,000 for the territory library that was used by appointed Territorial Governor
Issac Stevens to buy and ship 2,130 volumes from
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to
Olympia
The name Olympia may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games
* ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...
.
The first shipment of books departed from New York City on May 21, 1853, aboard the ''Invincible'', which traveled around
Cape Horn
Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...
and
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. The books were transferred to the ''Tarquinia'' and arrived in Olympia on October 23, 1853,
a few weeks before Governor Stevens arrived from his overland trip and took office. The library was opened to public use beginning in 1855, after an amendment to the territorial library law was passed by the territorial legislature.
Prior to achieving statehood on November 11, 1889, the Territorial Library reported a collection of 10,448 volumes. The new state legislature passed a bill creating the state library on March 27, 1890. The state library's collection was organized under the
Dewey Decimal Classification system in 1898, and a
card index
An index card (or record card in British English and system cards in Australian English) consists of card stock (heavy paper) cut to a standard size, used for recording and storing small amounts of discrete data. A collection of such cards ei ...
was created in 1901. The library occupied the
Joel M. Pritchard Building on the State Capitol campus in Olympia from 1958 until it was damaged by the
2001 Nisqually earthquake
The 2001 Nisqually earthquake occurred at on February 28, 2001 and lasted nearly a minute. The intraslab earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (''Severe''). The epicenter was in the southern Puget So ...
and evacuated.
At its greatest extent in the 1990s, the library contained 547,000 books, periodicals, and documents.
The library was moved to a temporary location in Tumwater in December 2001, while the Pritchard Building underwent already-planned renovations and served as the temporary chambers for the state senate. The general collection was downsized by 260,000 books, which were donated to local libraries.
The state government proposed closing the state library as part of its 2002 budget, saving $9 million in annual expenses, but the library was saved by eliminating the state library commission and merging operations with the Office of the Secretary of State effective July 1, 2002. The state government attempted to eliminate the state library a second time in December 2002, with collections transferred to local universities and colleges, but was saved by downsizing its staff and reorganizing under the Office of the Secretary of State.
The library has since expanded its digital collections, which include scanned copies of older state newspapers and books.
In 2019, the state legislature approved a $2 fee on recorded documents to fund the construction of a new library and archives building in Tumwater. The $108 million project would construct a joint facility on the South Campus near the former state library. The
Washington State Archives
The Washington State Library is a government agency that operates public libraries in Washington state's prisons and mental hospitals, and maintains collections related to the state government. Based in Tumwater, it is a service of the Washington ...
are currently housed in a building on the capitol campus that was constructed in 1962 and deemed too small to hold the state's records.
Branches and services
The State Library maintains branches at several state agencies, as well as in correctional facilities and mental hospitals:
*
Washington State Department of Transportation
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT or WashDOT, both ) is a governmental agency that constructs, maintains, and regulates the use of transportation infrastructure in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. Establi ...
Library
*
Washington State Department of Natural Resources Library
*
Washington State Utilities and Transportation Committee Library
*
Washington State Department of Labor and Industries Library
*WSDOT Materials Laboratory Library
*
Washington Talking Book & Braille Library, Seattle (since 2008)
*
Eastern State Hospital Library
*
Western State Hospital Library
*
Airway Heights Corrections Center Library
*
Clallam Bay Corrections Center
Clallam Bay Corrections Center is situated on the Olympic Peninsula in Clallam County, two miles (3.2 km) south of the community of Clallam Bay, Washington.
CBCC opened as a medium-custody 450-bed facility in 1985 and converted to a Close Custo ...
Library
*
Coyote Ridge Corrections Center
Coyote Ridge Corrections Center is a medium security prison located in Connell, Washington. Coyote Ridge is the largest prison by capacity in the state and is operated by the Washington State Department of Corrections.
Inmates of Coyote Ridge ty ...
Library
*
Stafford Creek Corrections Center
Stafford Creek Corrections Center (SCCC) is a Washington State Department of Corrections state prison for men located in Aberdeen, Washington. The facility opened in 2000, has an operating capacity of 1936 inmates, and supports a mix of minimum, ...
Library
*
Twin Rivers Corrections Center
The Twin Rivers Corrections Center opened in 1984 and is part of the Monroe Correctional Complex facility in Monroe, Washington. Currently, it is the largest prison in all of Washington State. It is now referred to as Twin Rivers Unit (TRU). It cu ...
Library
*
Washington Corrections Center Library
*
Washington Corrections Center for Women
Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW, originally the Purdy Treatment Center) is a Washington State Department of Corrections women's prison located in Gig Harbor, Washington. With an operating capacity of 740, it is the largest women's p ...
Library
*
Washington State Penitentiary Library
*
Washington State Reformatory Library
Computer network
The Washington State Library coordinates library access to the
Washington K-20 Network.
List of librarians
*Bion Freeman Kendall, 1853–1857
*Henry R. Crosbie, 1857
*Urban East Hicks, 1858
*Andrew Jackson Moses, 1859
*James Clark Head, 1860–1861, 1863, 1865
*Thomas Taylor, 1862
*John Paul Judson, 1864
*Samuel Nelson Woodruff, 1866
*Henry Lensen Chapman, 1866
*Levi Shelton, 1867–1869
*Jeremiah D. Mabie, 1869–1870
*Sylvester Hill Mann, 1870
*Champion Bramwell Mann, 1870
*Issac Van Dorsey Mossman, 1870–1873
*Benjamin Franklin Yantis, 1873–1875
*Frederick S. Holmes, 1875–1877
*
Elwood Evans thumb
Elwood Evans (December 29, 1828 – January 28, 1898) was an attorney, politician, and historian from Washington Territory. He was the mayor of Olympia and served briefly as acting governor of the territory. He is known as the pioneer histori ...
, 1877–1879
*Walter W. Newlin, 1879–1880
*James Peyre Ferry, 1880–1881
*Eliza Des Saure Newell, 1882–1887
*Eleanor Sharp Stevenson, 1888–1890
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
Special Collections
{{Authority control
1853 establishments in Washington Territory
Government agencies established in 1853
Libraries in Washington (state)
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...